Sunekos is one of the injectables sold to clinics as a "skin booster", with about 900 US searches a month (clickstream estimate, October 2026) for a product that is not approved in the United States. It is a combination of hyaluronic acid and free amino acids. This page sets out what the maker says is in it, where it is registered, and what has been measured, as of 17 October 2026. It does not recommend the treatment; anyone considering an injection should take the evidence below to a licensed clinician.
What is in it
Sunekos is made by Professional Dietetics S.p.A., a Milan company whose aesthetic division, Sunekos Laboratories, says it has specialised in "patented Amino Acids formulas since 1996". The brand site, read on 17 October 2026, lists five injectables — Sunekos 200, 1200, Performa, Body and Cell 15 — and describes them as "a patented combination of hyaluronic acid and amino acids", for use by qualified healthcare professionals only. Sunekos 200 is listed for the face and the area around the eyes, Performa for the face, eyes and neck. The product pages do not list amounts.
The amino acids are named in the published studies of the mixture: glycine, L-proline, L-leucine, L-lysine, L-valine and L-alanine, alongside high-molecular-weight sodium hyaluronate (Kabakci 2024, PMID 38590269). Glycine and proline are the two most common amino acids in collagen, which is the rationale offered: supply the raw materials, and the cells that build collagen may use them.
These are not peptides. A peptide is a chain of amino acids joined by bonds; free amino acids are single units. The distinction matters on this site, where peptides are the subject, and the brand itself does not claim peptides. Where Sunekos sits among the other injectables sold under the same name is mapped on our page about skin boosters.
Where it is registered
| Check | Result on 17 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| FDA device identification database (brand "Sunekos") | no record |
| FDA adverse-event database (brand "Sunekos") | no record |
| US premarket approval | none found |
| Maker's description of itself | "over 90 Class II & III Medical Devices" — European device classes |
The product is sold as a medical device in Europe and other markets. It has no US approval or clearance.
What the maker cites
The brand's clinical-studies page lists two papers:
- De Servi and colleagues, 2018 (PMID 29921376): mixtures of amino acids and hyaluronic acid applied to cultured human fibroblasts changed the activity of genes for collagen and elastin. The about page says the formula "has been proved by studies" to stimulate fibroblasts to make both. It was a dish experiment; cells in a dish are not skin after an injection.
- Sparavigna and Orlandini, 2017, in the Journal of Clinical Trials: a six-month, single-centre, open-label evaluation of an injectable device containing hyaluronic acid and amino acids. Open-label means everyone knew what was injected and there was no comparison group.
The registered trials: four finished, none reported
ClinicalTrials.gov lists four Sunekos trials, all sponsored by Derming SRL and run in Italy:
| Trial | Product | Area | People | Design | Completed | Results posted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCT03274232 | Sunekos 200 | face, photoageing | 25 | single arm, unmasked | April 2017 | no |
| NCT03425955 | Sunekos 200 and 1200 | face, two injection techniques | 12 | non-randomized, unmasked | December 2017 | no |
| NCT03881189 | Sunekos 200 | around the eyes | 22 | single arm, unmasked | March 2019 | no |
| NCT04113265 | Sunekos Body | inner thighs, knees, arms | 24 | single arm, unmasked | September 2019 | no |
That is 83 people across four studies, none randomized, none with an untreated or placebo group, and none reported on the registry seven to nine years later. Some may have been published under a generic description rather than the brand name: a PubMed search for "Sunekos" in the title or abstract returned one record on 17 October 2026 — a 2026 study of Sunekos Cell 15 in 46 women with cellulite, without a control group, in which 95.3% reported improvement (PMID 42582402).
The wider literature on hyaluronic acid with amino acids
A broader search for injected hyaluronic acid with amino acids on the face returned 21 records. The most useful is a 2026 meta-analysis of 11 studies (Mosteirin and colleagues, PMID 41724989), which reported lower wrinkle-severity scores and thicker dermis after treatment. Two caveats sit in its own abstract. Most pooled outcomes are before-and-after changes rather than comparisons with a control. And its adverse-event result — a risk ratio of 5.20 with a 95% confidence interval of 0.53 to 50.77, p = 0.16 — is described in the abstract as a "statistically significant difference", which the figures do not support: an interval that spans 1 and a p-value of 0.16 mean no difference was shown either way, and the width of the interval shows how few events there were to count. The authors call for larger prospective studies.
The individual studies are of the same shape: a 37-woman open-label perioral study with 3D photography (Poleva 2022, PMID 36074513), a morphometric study of the mid-face and jawline in women aged 30 to 55 (Kabakci 2024), and similar. None compares the mixture with hyaluronic acid alone in a randomized trial, which is the test of whether the amino acids add anything.
What is not established
Whether the amino acids do anything that hyaluronic acid alone does not; how long any change lasts; how Sunekos compares with PDRN or polynucleotide injections or with exosome treatments; and how often uncommon harms occur. The maker's own trials, if their results were posted, would answer some of this. Until then, the evidence is a cell study, open-label series and a meta-analysis that its own abstract over-reads.
Sources
Opened 17 October 2026: sunekos.com home, about-us, clinical-studies and product pages (Sunekos 200, 1200, Performa); ClinicalTrials.gov records NCT03274232, NCT03425955, NCT03881189 and NCT04113265; openFDA device UDI and MAUDE searches for "sunekos"; PubMed records 29921376, 38590269, 36074513, 41724989 and 42582402, the search sunekos[tiab] (1) and the hyaluronic-acid-with-amino-acids search (21), including the 2025 angioedema case report (PMID 41037700). Corrections go to the contact page.