Is Thymalin with epitalon legal in the United Kingdom?

A pairing that was actually studied as a pair. 266 older people were followed for six to eight years on thymalin and epithalamin. The group given both was reported to die at a 2.5 times lower rate than the comparison group. A group treated every year for six years was reported at 4.1 times lower. But the paper does not say people were picked by chance or kept unaware of their treatment. It came from one research group and has never been repeated. And the pineal ingredient in it was a gland extract, not the lab-made peptide sold today.

This page has to do something unusual. It reports an amazing claim from a real study of the pair, then explains exactly why it is not settled.

How it works: Thymalin is a mix of peptides taken from calf thymus. It is claimed to restore the immune function that depends on the thymus.

Approval history: Neither is approved in the United States. Both are made and used in Russia, as part of its peptide bioregulator programme. Elsewhere they are sold as research chemicals.

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 Thymalin with epitalon 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 Thymalin with epitalon 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 Thymalin with epitalon 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.