Is Beinaglutide legal in the United Kingdom?

The only marketed GLP-1 drug that is the unmodified human hormone, which is why it has to be injected three times a day. Approved in China, and in a 427 person phase 3 it produced 6.0 percent weight loss against 2.4 percent on placebo over 16 weeks.

Every other drug in this class is the human hormone rebuilt to survive in the bloodstream: an amino acid swapped to resist the enzyme that degrades it, a fatty acid chain added to bind albumin, a protein domain fused on to slow clearance. Beinaglutide is none of that.

Mechanism: Recombinant human glucagon-like peptide-1 (7-36) amide, produced in a recombinant system and identical in sequence to the endogenous hormone. It activates the GLP-1 receptor exactly as the native hormone does: glucose-dependent insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells, glucagon suppression, delayed gastric emptying and reduced food intake through vagal and central pathways.

Regulatory history: Not approved in the United States. Marketed in China for type 2 diabetes, and approved by China's National Medical Products Administration in July 2023 for weight management.

Licenses medicines for the UK market. A compound without a marketing authorisation is an unlicensed medicine, which can only lawfully be supplied for human use through a prescriber under the specials scheme, not sold as a research product.

The classification above is the The Longevity Archive reading of Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency listings for Beinaglutide at the reviewed date, not a legal opinion. Rules change, and importing, prescribing and possessing a compound can each be treated differently. Check the regulator directly before acting on anything here.