Hexapeptide-40 Methionyl sh-Polypeptide-11 is a single chain recombinant peptide, produced by fermentation in E. coli. The starting gene is synthesized by the fusion of the gene from Hexapeptide-40 and sh-Polypeptide-11 with the initiation code for methionine. The fusion peptide contains 147 amino acids which may contain disulfide bonds and/or glycosylation, and consists of the proper sequence of the 20 standard amino acids.