A method for promoting muscle or tendon regeneration, and/or arteriogenesis in a subject includes administering to the subject a pharmaceutical composition that contains a synthetic peptide, which has an amino acid sequence that has 20-39 amino acid residues and has at least 20 consecutive residues that has at least 90% amino acid sequence identity to residues 11-30 of SEQ ID NO: 1. The synthetic peptide may have the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1, SEQ ID NO: 2, SEQ ID NO: 3, SEQ ID NO: 5, SEQ ID NO: 6, SEQ ID NO: 8, or SEQ ID NO: 9.