Is MOTS-c legal in Canada?

A tiny peptide made from the DNA in the cell's power plants. In people there are real studies: a gene variant common in Northeast Asia, blood levels measured across age and illness, and a change with exercise. One study with a dummy group is signing people up. None of this shows that taking it as a drug helps.

MOTS-c is a chain of 16 amino acids. Its recipe sits in the DNA of mitochondria, the cell's power plants, not in the main DNA of the cell.

How it works: In animals, under stress MOTS-c moves into the cell's control center and changes which genes are switched on. Part of how it does that is by slowing the folate cycle and the making of purines, building blocks for DNA.

Approval history: Not FDA-approved. In April 2026 the FDA took it off Category 2, its list of pharmacy ingredients with safety worries. In July 2026 the FDA's Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee voted 7 to 5 in favor of letting pharmacies make it. The FDA's own reviewers had advised against that. The FDA has not acted yet. One mid-stage study is signing people up (NCT07505745)

Allows a drug to be sold by issuing a Notice of Compliance and a Drug Identification Number (DIN). A compound that is not allowed for sale cannot legally be sold for use in people. Bringing in prescription drugs for your own use is also limited.

The legal category above is how The Longevity Archive reads Health Canada, Health Products and Food Branch listings for MOTS-c 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 Health Canada directly

Whether MOTS-c is banned in sport is set by the World Anti-Doping Code and by military rules, not by its legal status in Canada. Before you compete or get tested, look up MOTS-c 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.