What this site is and how it works.

About TA1 Reviews

TA1 Reviews is an independent editorial project that publishes summaries of the peer-reviewed research literature on thymosin alpha-1 (thymalfasin / Tα1). We are not a clinic. We do not employ clinicians and we do not provide medical advice. We do not manufacture, sell, or distribute any product. Our work is editorial commentary on publicly available science.

The domain modifier 'reviews' reflects our editorial position: this site exists to review what the published research actually says about thymosin alpha-1, not to advocate for or against any use. That means presenting contested findings as contested — the TESTS phase 3 null result alongside the ETASS mortality reduction, the WADA status alongside the FDA Category 2 restriction, the in vitro tumor-cell null findings alongside the retrospective melanoma OS data. Accuracy is the editorial standard.

We are not affiliated with any manufacturer, distributor, compounding pharmacy, clinical practice, or regulatory body. Nothing on this site should be read as treatment guidance, a clinical recommendation, or an endorsement of any product or use.

Editorial Methodology

Every quantitative claim on this site is sourced to a specific published study. Sources are drawn from PubMed, PubMed Central, the National Institutes of Health, and peer-reviewed journals including Blood, Hepatology, Critical Care, BMJ, Frontiers in Oncology, Frontiers in Immunology, International Immunopharmacology, Translational Lung Cancer Research, OncoTargets and Therapy, and the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

We do not cite preprints, proprietary reports, marketing literature, or sources that have not undergone peer review. Where a finding is based on a single study and has not been replicated, we note that. Where findings are contradicted by subsequent research — as is prominently the case for the sepsis mortality endpoint — we describe both the earlier and later evidence without resolving the contradiction where the literature has not resolved it.

All citations are linked to their primary source record on PubMed or the journal's DOI page. The references page provides the complete index.

Compound Class and Regulatory Context

Thymosin alpha-1 (thymalfasin) is approved as a pharmaceutical in approximately 35 countries for chronic hepatitis B and, in several markets, as an immune adjuvant in oncology. It holds FDA Orphan Drug Designation in the United States for hepatitis B and hepatocellular carcinoma. It is not approved by the FDA for any indication. In 2023, the FDA placed it on its Category 2 bulk drug substances list, restricting compounding pharmacy production in the US.

In the United States, thymosin alpha-1 is a research chemical, not an approved pharmaceutical. This site operates under the research-peptide editorial and disclaimer framework appropriate to that status. We do not advocate for any use, and we do not dispute the FDA's regulatory authority. We do report, as a matter of editorial accuracy, that the FDA Category 2 placement has been challenged in peer-reviewed literature ^[12] — that is a fact about the scientific discourse, not a regulatory position we endorse.