Is Empagliflozin legal in the United Kingdom?

Four randomised outcome trials in more than 23,000 people, including a 32 percent relative reduction in all-cause death in EMPA-REG OUTCOME. The entire ageing case is one single-laboratory mouse study reporting 5.9 percent longer median survival in males, and the Interventions Testing Program has never tested this drug.

Empagliflozin blocks the kidney transporter that reabsorbs filtered glucose, so glucose and the sodium travelling with it leave in the urine. It was licensed as a diabetes drug and then turned out to do something its mechanism did not obviously predict, which is reduce cardiovascular death, heart failure hospitalisation and kidney disease progression, including in people without diabetes.

Mechanism: Selectively inhibits sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 in the proximal tubule, so filtered glucose is excreted rather than reabsorbed. The cardiorenal benefit is larger and faster than glucose lowering alone explains and is not fully accounted for.

Regulatory history: FDA approved for type 2 diabetes, for reducing cardiovascular death in adults with type 2 diabetes and established cardiovascular disease, for heart failure across the ejection fraction range, and for chronic kidney disease. Not approved for ageing, longevity or healthspan.

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 Empagliflozin 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.