Are peptides legal in Iraq?

The federal Ministry of Health (وزارة الصحة العراقية) regulates medicines through four of its bodies, according to a 2021 report in the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, published by the WHO Regional Office: the Directorate of Technical Affairs, the Directorate of Public Health, the Directorate of Inspection, and Kimadia. Technical Affairs is the main regulator. It approves medicines, issues marketing authorisations, grants import and manufacturing licences, tests quality, controls release to the market and runs pharmacovigilance.

What the same report records, step by step:

• Registration. The directorate's Registration Department registers pharmaceutical companies and products, made in Iraq or abroad, for the public and private sectors. The regular route takes about a year; a fast track since February 2019 serves products already approved by certain foreign regulators.
• How long a registration lasts. Five years for imported products and ten years for products made in Iraq, according to the procedure guide of Pharmexcil, India's pharmaceutical export council (2013). The journal adds that a product whose file is not updated after five years loses its registration.
• Import licences. Granted by the directorate's Pharmacy Department and valid for one year.
• Testing. The National Center for Drug Control and Research (المركز الوطني للرقابة والبحوث الدوائية), founded in 1984, tests medicines before registration and usually examines every batch of imported and Iraqi-made medicines before release. Products holding FDA, EMA or UK certificates can be exempt.
• Licences to trade. The Syndicate of Iraqi Pharmacists licenses scientific offices, drug stores (المذاخر) and community pharmacies. The ministry's Inspection Directorate and the syndicate both inspect them.

The report lists what the directorate regulates: medicines, biotherapeutics, vaccines, blood and blood components, herbal and traditional medicines, food supplements, medical devices, diagnostics and narcotics. Cosmetics are not on that list.

A law firm's guide cites Law No. 40 of 1970, on the practice of pharmacy, as the framework for importing medical products. We have not read its text.

Kimadia (كيماديا) is the Ministry of Health's State Company for Marketing Drugs and Medical Appliances, founded in 1964. It buys and distributes medicines, medical appliances and equipment for public hospitals and primary health care centres in every province (18 when the report was written; Halabja became Iraq's 19th province in 2025), and it distributes medicines to public facilities in the Kurdistan Region as well. It is responsible for the first level of the national essential medicines list; in 2019 it secured 60% of those medicines (EMHJ, 2021). Most public tenders for medicines are issued by Kimadia (Pharmexcil). Its website is kimadia.gov.iq. Private pharmacies are supplied another way.

A registered foreign manufacturer sells into the private sector through its scientific office (المكتب العلمي), the company's national representative in Iraq. The office supplies drug stores, and the drug stores supply community pharmacies (EMHJ, 2021).

The report adds a figure for anyone buying outside that chain: in 2019 the Ministry of Health reported that 60 to 70% of medicines in the private sector were neither registered nor quality tested by the ministry.

The Kurdistan Region (Erbil, Duhok, Sulaymaniyah and Halabja) has its own Ministry of Health, which works with the federal ministry in Baghdad. Its Kurdistan Medicines Control Agency regulates medicines in the region, with its own drug approval committee, and sets the price stickers for the private sector. The region's customs keep a pharmacist at each point of entry, and a manufacturing site must be registered with the federal Ministry of Health or the Agency before its medicines are released (EMHJ, 2021). The regional government's services portal lists drug product registration through the Agency as an online service.

On 6 June 2026 the region's Ministry of Health announced that laboratory tests had found sibutramine, a banned substance, in a slimming coffee. It urged people to avoid products promoted on social media without official licences and approvals from the Ministry of Health (Shafaqna Iraq, 6 June 2026). The warning was not about peptides. It is the closest Iraqi statement we found to the subject of this page: products sold online without a licence.

Consultancy and certification pages say cosmetics are registered with the Ministry of Health, which has a cosmetics centre, and that labels must be in Arabic. We could not find the registration procedure published where we could read it, so we do not describe it.

Imports are better documented. Under Iraq's Conformity Assessment Programme, in force since 1 January 2020, chemicals, cosmetics and perfumery products are regulated products. Each consignment needs a Certificate of Conformity, issued before shipment, and is inspected on arrival (Intertek). For goods going to the Kurdistan Region, Intertek describes a separate consignment-based service with its own list of regulated products. Its exporter guide does not list cosmetics; products outside the list are tested and certified in the region.

Peptides such as copper tripeptide-1 are ordinary cosmetic ingredients. We supply them to manufacturers as cosmetic-grade ingredients, and the brand registers its finished product. Importing cosmetics into Iraq covers the file.

A research material is a substance supplied to a laboratory for experiments. We found no Iraqi rule, instruction or statement on research-use-only materials. The journal report notes that the Registration Department has a committee for laboratory materials; whether research peptides fall to it is for an Iraqi lawyer to confirm.

Our position, which is for an Iraqi lawyer to confirm:

• A research material is not a medicine and is not for use in people or animals.
• We supply research-grade products only to businesses and institutions we have verified, against a signed end-use declaration. We do not supply individuals.
• No page of ours describes what a product does in a body or gives a dose. We do not sell through social media.

One point needs no lawyer: a "research use only" line does not make a sale to the public lawful. Research use only, explained covers the label, and who can buy lists our checks.

None of this is Iraqi law. It records how three regulators near Iraq treated unlicensed peptides this year.

• Qatar, 25 August. A Ministry of Public Health circular, announced on 27 August, banned the import, sale, prescription, dispensing, use and promotion of unlicensed peptide preparations, naming MOTS-c and BPC-157 among its examples. It covers products labelled "for research purposes" or "not for human use" when in practice they are used or promoted for people (Qatar Living, 27 August).
• Jordan, September. The Jordan Food and Drug Administration warned against peptides promoted on social media and in fitness centres, listing BPC-157 and TB-500 among products not licensed or registered in Jordan. It said it had closed more than 10 online pages and six fitness centres (Jordan News, 3 September).
• Saudi Arabia, 29 September. The Saudi Food and Drug Authority said it had found unregistered peptide products offered through websites and online accounts, and that cases against the store owners were being prepared for referral to the Public Prosecution (SFDA).

No source we could read answers these points, so we make no claim about them:

1. Whether research-use-only materials need a registration, licence or permit in federal Iraq or in the Kurdistan Region.
2. The penalties under Iraq's drug and pharmacy laws.
3. The import of raw materials and research materials, and who obtains each Certificate of Conformity.
4. Bringing medicines into Iraq when travelling.