Is Mecasermin legal in the United Kingdom?

An approved medicine, but only for a rare condition in children. In 76 children with a severe shortage of IGF-1, growth sped up from 2.8 cm a year to 8.0 cm a year in the first year, and 49 percent had low blood sugar. Children followed to the end of puberty moved a good way up the height chart but stayed well short of average.

Mecasermin is a lab-made copy of human IGF-1, the finished 70 amino acid form of the hormone. It is given as a shot under the skin, twice a day with food.

How it works: Mecasermin locks onto the IGF-1 receptor on cells. That switches on growth signals inside the cell, called PI3K/Akt and MAPK.

Approval history: FDA-approved. INCRELEX (mecasermin), BLA 021839, made by Ipsen, first approved 30 August 2005, prescription only. It is for children who are not growing because of a severe IGF-1 shortage that is not caused by low growth hormone. It is also for children missing the growth hormone gene whose immune system has started blocking growth hormone treatment. It is not approved for adults, for age-related muscle loss, for recovery or for any performance use.

Licenses medicines for sale in the UK. A compound without a licence to be sold (a marketing authorisation) is an unlicensed medicine. The law only lets it reach people through a prescriber, under the specials scheme (unlicensed medicines made for one patient's needs). It cannot be sold as a research product.

The legal category above is how The Longevity Archive reads Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency listings for Mecasermin on the reviewed date. It is not a legal opinion. Rules change. Bringing a compound into the country, prescribing it and owning it can each be treated differently. Check with the agency before you act on anything here.

Check MHRA directly

Whether Mecasermin is banned in sport is set by the World Anti-Doping Code and by military rules, not by its legal status in the United Kingdom. Before you compete or get tested, look up Mecasermin by name on the Prohibited List, or look up a named product in Global DRO. Under the World Anti-Doping Code, category S0 bans, at all times, any drug-like substance that meets two tests. No other section of the List covers it. And no government health regulator anywhere has a current approval for it as a treatment in people. Many substances that are approved somewhere are banned by name in another section. So approval does not mean a substance is allowed in sport.

• WADA Prohibited List
• Global DRO (check a named product)
• USADA (US athletes)
• Operation Supplement Safety (US service members)

The rules you compete or serve under decide this, not this page.