Dihexa

Dihexa is a synthetic angiotensin IV (AngIV) analogue reported to be orally active and able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier. The accessed literature does not provide evidence of approved human use and does not identify a human clinical development dataset; evidence status is therefore best described as preclinical.

The mechanistic literature proposes that Dihexa binds hepatocyte growth factor and enhances HGF/c-Met receptor signaling, producing synaptogenic and procognitive effects in rodent models. Accessible primary summaries describe the mechanism as HGF/c-Met dependent but do not provide a regulatory-grade quantitative affinity constant. The same HGF/c-Met pathway that gives rise to the cognitive signal is also implicated in tumorigenesis and metastasis, which is the central safety concern raised in secondary scientific summaries.