Is Oxandrolone legal in the United Kingdom?

The anabolic steroid with the best medical trial record, and it comes from an unexpected place: two years of randomised use in severely burned children, with bone density and growth as endpoints.

Oxandrolone has a reputation as the mild one, and underneath that reputation sits a genuinely serious body of randomised evidence that has nothing to do with bodybuilding. Severe burns produce a catabolic state that lasts years, destroying muscle and bone in children who then fail to grow properly.

Mechanism: A synthetic derivative of dihydrotestosterone with an oxygen substituted into the A ring and a 17-alpha methyl group. The 17-alpha alkylation is what allows it to survive first-pass metabolism and be taken orally, and it is also the feature responsible for the liver strain shared across oral alkylated androgens.

Regulatory history: Was FDA-approved as Oxandrin for weight gain after weight loss following extensive surgery, chronic infection, severe trauma and some other catabolic states. Schedule III controlled substance. The brand was discontinued in the United States, so availability now is largely through compounding or the grey market.

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 Oxandrolone 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.