Is BNP and nesiritide legal in the United Kingdom?

The heart hormone that became both the standard blood test for heart failure and a drug that failed. In ASCEND-HF, 7,141 people were randomised to nesiritide or placebo: dyspnoea barely moved, death and rehospitalisation did not change, and the product is listed Discontinued in Drugs@FDA.

B-type natriuretic peptide is a 32 amino acid peptide, sequence SPKMVQGSGCFGRKMDRISSSSGLGCKVLRRH, released by ventricular muscle under wall stress. Most readers meet it twice over and the two meanings get confused, so the distinction comes first.

Mechanism: In humans, BNP binds NPR-A (gene NPR1), the same particulate guanylyl cyclase receptor as ANP, raising cyclic GMP to produce vasodilation, natriuresis and suppression of renin and aldosterone. That is the physiology that made a recombinant version look promising in acute heart failure.

Regulatory history: NATRECOR (nesiritide), NDA 020920, Scios LLC, originally approved in 2001 for acutely decompensated heart failure. On the Drugs@FDA query of 11 September 2026 the product is listed Discontinued, with the Federal Register determination that it was not discontinued or withdrawn for safety or effectiveness reasons. BNP and NT-proBNP remain in routine use as diagnostic blood tests, which is a laboratory use, not a drug approval.

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 BNP and nesiritide 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.