Vilon is a synthetic dipeptide — Lys-Glu (KE), roughly 275 Da, molecular formula C11H21N3O5 — that Vladimir Khavinson's St. Petersburg group developed as part of its thymic-bioregulator program. It is one of the shortest bioregulator peptides on the research market, just two amino acids. That simplicity is exactly where most buyers go wrong: the decades of Russian clinical use belong to Thymalin, the thymus-gland peptide extract, while Vilon is the short synthetic analog whose published record is a handful of small animal and in-vitro studies with no independent Western replication.
This guide covers what Vilon typically costs on the research market, how to verify a certificate of analysis for a peptide this simple, and — most importantly — how to confirm the vial actually contains the Lys-Glu dipeptide and not a mislabeled thymus extract or a different Khavinson peptide. Vilon is niche enough that vendor quality varies a lot, so knowing what a real COA looks like is the single most useful skill here.
Research-context information only. Vilon is a research peptide. Protocols, doses, and reactions reported below come from published research and self-reported community sources. This article reports what has been documented, not what should be done. Consult a licensed physician for personal medical decisions.
Affiliate disclosure: Some links below route to vendor partners, and we may earn a commission if you buy through them at no extra cost to you. That never changes what we report about a vendor's COA, pricing, or track record. All products discussed are research chemicals labeled "not for human consumption."
This is not a ranked vendor list — for that, see our Best Vilon Vendors comparison. This guide teaches you how to evaluate any vendor yourself.
Understanding Vilon Pricing
Vilon is sold as a lyophilized (freeze-dried) powder in sealed glass vials. Because it is a niche Khavinson bioregulator rather than a mainstream peptide, fewer vendors stock it, and prices are less compressed than they are for high-volume compounds like BPC-157 or semaglutide. Two consequences follow: per-mg pricing swings more from vendor to vendor, and vial-size selection matters less than simply finding a reputable seller with a real COA.
Current Market Pricing (2026)
The ranges below reflect typical research-market listings, not any single vendor's exact number (which goes stale). For live per-mg pricing, use the comparison pages linked under the table.
Vial Size
Typical Price Range
Price Per mg
Best For
5 mg
$15-40
$3-8/mg
Identity/tolerance testing
10 mg
$20-55
$2-5.50/mg
Most common single-vial purchase
20 mg
$35-90
$1.75-4.50/mg
Better per-mg value
The pattern is the usual one: the larger vial lowers the per-mg cost because base synthesis cost is nearly flat, but the spread is smaller than it is for cheaper mainstream peptides — the bigger variable for Vilon is which vendor, not which vial. As a two-amino-acid peptide, Vilon is among the cheapest compounds to synthesize, which makes an unusually high price or a missing COA harder to justify, not easier.
For current vendor-specific pricing with exact $/mg breakdowns, see our Best Vilon Vendors comparison.
How to Verify Vilon Quality
Vilon is a two-amino-acid peptide with molecular formula C11H21N3O5 and a molecular weight of about 275 Da. It is short, simple, and inexpensive to synthesize — which means a legitimate certificate of analysis is easy for any competent vendor to produce, and the absence of one is a red flag rather than an excuse. The bigger verification challenge with Vilon is not purity; it is identity. The goal is to confirm the vial contains the Lys-Glu dipeptide and not a mislabeled thymus product or an unrelated Khavinson peptide.
What a COA (Certificate of Analysis) Should Include
Identity Confirmation
Mass spectrometry confirming the correct molecular weight (about 275 Da; molecular formula C11H21N3O5)
The chromatogram should show a single dominant peak with minimal impurities
Contamination Testing
Endotoxin levels (bacterial contamination)
Residual solvent analysis (acetonitrile, TFA)
Heavy-metals screening
How to Verify a COA Is Legitimate
Check the testing lab — Reputable third-party labs include Janoshik Analytical, MZ Biolabs, and Colmaric Analyticals. Avoid vendors who only show "in-house" testing.
Verify on the lab's website — Janoshik COAs carry a task number that can be looked up directly at janoshik.com.
Check the date — A COA should be recent (within about 6 months) and not a years-old document reused across batches.
Match the batch — The batch/lot number on the COA should match what is printed on the vial.
Look for the original PDF — Full PDFs with lab letterhead and signatures are much harder to fake than a cropped screenshot.
Red Flags to Avoid
No COA available — inexcusable for a peptide this cheap to synthesize and test
Only in-house testing — self-reported purity numbers are meaningless
Product sold simply as "Thymalin" or "thymus peptide" — that is the extract or an unspecified product, not the Lys-Glu dipeptide; confirm the sequence
A COA whose mass does not match ~275 Da — that may be a different thymic peptide or the wrong compound entirely
No contact information — legitimate vendors have real customer service
No return or reship policy — reputable vendors stand behind their products
20mg · sold research-use-only · we may earn a commission
Choosing the Right Vial Size
For a niche dipeptide like Vilon, vial-size choice is a value question, not a dosing one. Because Vilon is inexpensive to make and typically sold in small vials, the practical decision is how much peptide is worth buying up front against how long reconstituted material stays stable. The constraint that actually matters is reconstituted stability, not quantity.
Stability Sets the Ceiling, Not the Vial
Once reconstituted with bacteriostatic water, small stable peptides like Vilon are generally kept refrigerated and used within about 21-28 days; sterile water (no preservative) drops that window to roughly 24 hours. The practical takeaway for a purchase decision: a larger vial only saves money if the material is used inside that stability window. This is a storage-and-value calculation. For the actual mixing math — how much bacteriostatic water to add and how to draw a measured amount — see the Vilon reconstitution guide rather than working it out from a purchase page.
Recommended Vial Size by Situation
Identity / tolerance testing:
A 5mg vial is enough to confirm sequence identity from the COA and to verify tolerance before committing to more.
Single purchase:
A 10mg vial is the most common single-vial buy — little waste and a lower per-mg cost than a 5mg vial.
Best per-mg value:
A 20mg vial offers the lowest per-mg price, but it only pays off if the reconstituted material is used inside the stability window, so it suits repeat buyers rather than first-time identity checks.
Buying Multiple Smaller vs One Large Vial
Factor
Multiple Small (e.g., 2× 10mg)
One Large (1× 20mg)
Cost per mg
Higher
Lower
Freshness
Reconstitute as needed
Must portion carefully
Flexibility
Pay as you go
Buy once
Storage
Easier (smaller volumes)
Standard
Shipping
More frequent orders
Single shipment
Our take: for a niche peptide, buying one 10mg vial at a time from a vendor with a verifiable COA usually beats chasing the marginal per-mg savings of a larger vial — the freshness and lower up-front risk are worth more here than they are on a high-volume compound.
Vendor Evaluation Methodology
When comparing Vilon vendors, we weight three factors:
Price Competitiveness (40%)
We normalize to cost per milligram so vials of different sizes compare fairly. Because Vilon's price spread is driven more by vendor than by vial size, the cheapest legitimate seller with a real COA usually wins this category outright.
COA & Testing (30%)
We check that COAs are from recognized third-party labs, recent (within about 6 months), verifiable on the lab's website, batch-matched to the vial, and — critically for this compound — that they confirm the ~275 Da mass and the Lys-Glu sequence rather than a generic "thymus peptide."
Reputation (30%)
Community feedback from peptide forums, shipping reliability, customer-service responsiveness, and business track record. We give extra weight to vendors who label Vilon clearly and distinguish it from the Thymalin thymus extract instead of blurring the two.
Shipping and Storage
What to Expect When an Order Arrives
Lyophilized Vilon should arrive as a white or off-white powder cake in a sealed glass vial. Check:
Vial integrity — no cracks, intact rubber stopper and aluminum crimp cap
Powder appearance — a solid cake or loose powder, NOT liquid or discolored
Labeling — batch/lot number, milligram content, and "for research use only"
Cold pack — reputable vendors ship with cold packs in warm months
Storage Guidelines
State
Temperature
Duration
Lyophilized (powder)
Room temp
Weeks (shipping window)
Lyophilized (powder)
Refrigerated (2-8°C)
12-24 months
Lyophilized (powder)
Frozen (-20°C)
2+ years
Reconstituted (BAC water)
Refrigerated (2-8°C)
~28 days
Reconstituted (sterile water)
Refrigerated (2-8°C)
~24 hours
Key point: keep unreconstituted vials refrigerated, and reconstitute only what will be used inside the stability window. Vilon's short, simple structure stores well as a dry powder.
What the Evidence Actually Is
One reason identity verification matters so much for Vilon is that the underlying evidence is thin and belongs largely to the extract, not the synthetic dipeptide. Vilon's published record is a handful of small Khavinson-group rodent and in-vitro studies — for example, a 2000 report describing tumor development and lifespan in mice and a rat bladder-carcinogenesis model — with no independent Western replication. The proposed gene-expression mechanism is a Khavinson-group hypothesis studied mostly in vitro. None of this is FDA-approved, and the human immune data commonly cited for "thymic peptides" generally traces back to the Thymalin extract rather than to the synthetic Lys-Glu dipeptide sold as a research chemical. That gap is the reason a buyer's first job is confirming the sequence, not comparing benefit claims.
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Vilon is sold as a research chemical and is legal to purchase in most jurisdictions for research purposes. It is not FDA-approved in the United States and has no approved counterpart anywhere. Research vendors label the product 'not for human consumption.' The synthetic Lys-Glu dipeptide is distinct from Thymalin, the thymus-gland peptide extract prescribed in Russia.
What's the difference between Vilon and Thymalin?
Thymalin is a polypeptide extract of animal thymus tissue, marketed as an injectable immune product in Russia and some Eastern European countries. Vilon is a synthetic two-amino-acid peptide (Lys-Glu / KE) that Khavinson's group developed within the same thymic-bioregulator program. They are different products: most of the clinical use belongs to the thymus extract, while Vilon's published data is small-scale animal and in-vitro research. Buying one when you meant the other is the most common Vilon mistake.
How much does Vilon cost?
As a niche Khavinson dipeptide, Vilon is stocked by fewer vendors than mainstream peptides, so pricing is less compressed. A 10mg vial typically runs $20-55 and a 20mg vial $35-90, which works out to roughly $2-5.50/mg depending on vial size and vendor. Check the live /best/vilon and /prices/vilon pages for current per-mg numbers.
What purity and identity should a Vilon COA show?
Look for third-party HPLC purity of 98%+ and mass spectrometry confirming the correct molecular weight (about 275 Da for the Lys-Glu dipeptide, molecular formula C11H21N3O5). The sequence should read Lys-Glu (KE). Because this is one of the shortest, cheapest peptides to synthesize, there is no good reason for a vendor to skip a batch-matched third-party COA.
Can I buy Vilon from a pharmacy?
Not in the United States. There is no FDA-approved Vilon product. The related Thymalin thymus extract is a prescription product in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe, but the synthetic Vilon dipeptide is only available in Western markets through research-peptide vendors, not pharmacies.
This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition. Consult a licensed healthcare provider before using any peptide.
