Is Semax / Selank legal in Canada?

Two Russian peptides sold as a pair, either as two nose sprays or one combined bottle. The pitch is that one sharpens and the other calms. No study has tested them together. Each has Russian data in people: 110 stroke patients for Semax, and 62 anxiety patients for Selank. Neither study compared the drug against a dummy. A combined spray at 2.5 mg per mL of each flips the split the two are registered at in Russia.

Semax and Selank came out of the same Russian research program and ended up in the same medicine cabinet. Semax is a lab-made copy of a piece of ACTH, a stress hormone.

How it works: Semax is a copy of ACTH 4-10 with extra pieces added to make it last. It raises BDNF and NGF, two growth factors for brain cells, and shifts dopamine and related brain signals.

Approval history: Not approved as a blend or on their own. Both are registered medicines in Russia. Neither has FDA or European Medicines Agency approval, and no combination product is registered anywhere.

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 Semax / Selank 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 Semax / Selank 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 Semax / Selank 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.