Is SS-20 legal in Australia?

The sister of SS-31, the peptide that became the approved drug elamipretide. SS-20 cannot mop up free radicals, the unstable molecules that damage cells. That made it a useful test case, and it worked anyway in rats and mice. There is no human study and no registered trial.

SS-20 is a tiny peptide of four amino acids, Phe-D-Arg-Phe-Lys-NH2. It is one of the Szeto-Schiller peptides made at Weill Cornell in New York.

How it works: SS-20 goes to the inner wall of mitochondria and sticks to cardiolipin, a fat found there. That protects cytochrome c, a protein that passes energy along the chain inside mitochondria.

Approval history: Not approved, and never sent to a regulator. Its sister drug SS-31, elamipretide, got US accelerated approval in 2025, a faster route based on early signs of benefit, for Barth syndrome, a rare inherited disease. SS-20 has no legal status of any kind.

Registers or lists medicines and health products on the ARTG, its official register. It also sorts substances into schedules in the Poisons Standard. Many peptides are Schedule 4 (prescription only). So having them without a prescription, or importing them for yourself, is restricted. That is true even when no product is registered.

The legal category above is how The Longevity Archive reads Therapeutic Goods Administration listings for SS-20 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 TGA directly

Whether SS-20 is banned in sport is set by the World Anti-Doping Code and by military rules, not by its legal status in Australia. Before you compete or get tested, look up SS-20 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.