Is Dermorphin legal in the United Kingdom?

A seven amino acid mu-opioid agonist from South American frog skin, 30 to 40 times more potent than morphine in animals. Given to 22 people in two 1980s Italian endocrine studies and never developed as a medicine; its documented real world use is as an undetected racehorse doping agent until 2011.

Dermorphin was isolated in 1980 from the skin of Phyllomedusa tree frogs and turned out to be one of the most potent and selective mu-opioid agonists known. Its sequence, Tyr-D-Ala-Phe-Gly-Tyr-Pro-Ser-NH2, contains a D-alanine at position 2, one of the first D-amino acids found in an animal peptide, which protects it from the enzymes that would otherwise destroy it within minutes.

Mechanism: In people, what is established comes from 22 subjects in the 1980s: intravenous dermorphin raises prolactin through a naloxone reversible, mu-opioid mechanism in healthy volunteers, and raises growth hormone in most patients with prolactinomas. That confirms it acts as a mu agonist in the human hypothalamic pituitary axis.

Regulatory history: Not FDA approved. Never developed as a human medicine; no trial registered; no regulatory submission located.

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 Dermorphin 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.