Overview
In Colombia there is no peptide-specific statute; peptides are handled under the general medicines regime, which means any product with a therapeutic claim must hold an INVIMA sanitary registration (registro sanitario) before it can be manufactured, imported, marketed or dispensed. Approved peptide medicines such as semaglutide (Ozempic) are legal but prescription-only through licensed channels, while 'research' or compounded peptides such as BPC-157, TB-500, retatrutide, GHK-Cu and unregistered tirzepatide have no registration and are therefore treated by INVIMA as fraudulent or illegal products. INVIMA has escalated enforcement sharply in 2024-2026, issuing repeated sanitary alerts against online and 'magistral' peptide sales for weight loss. Personal importation is not a free channel: medicines require import authorization and a valid prescription, and unregistered products can be seized.
Key Points
- Colombia's core medicines law, Decreto 677 de 1995, subjects the production, import, export, dispensing and marketing of medicines to a sanitary registration and quality-control regime supervised by INVIMA, so any injectable peptide sold with a health claim falls under it. [1]
- INVIMA's Sanitary Alert No. 181-2026 states that Tirzepatide injection 10 mg, Retatrutide 10 mg/mL, GHK-Cu peptide solution, LIPO-C + B12 and NAD+ 10 mg/mL do not comply with Decreto 677 de 1995, have not been evaluated for quality, safety or efficacy, and lack sanitary registration. [2]
- In June 2026 INVIMA publicly warned about the growing illegal online sale of weight-loss products lacking sanitary registration and referred back to its Safety Report No. 143-2025 documenting the dangers of self-medicating with GLP-1 analogues. [3]
- INVIMA Sanitary Alert No. 090-2024 declared the sale of a Semaglutida + Vitamina B12 product promoted as a magistral (compounded) weight-loss preparation to be illegal and fraudulent because it had no sanitary registration, and confirmed that only OZEMPIC is authorized in Colombia for semaglutide. [4]
- Compounded 'magistral' preparations may only be produced in authorized pharmaceutical establishments under the technical direction of a licensed pharmaceutical chemist per Decreto 2200 de 2005, which excludes gyms, aesthetic clinics and online sellers. [5]
- Importing medicines into Colombia runs through INVIMA's import and export authorizations and licensing group (VUCE), meaning shipments of pharmaceutical products are subject to prior authorization rather than free entry. [6]
- INVIMA's Concepto 40 de 2024 addresses personal-use importation and confirms that a medical prescription meeting the content requirements of Decreto 780 de 2016 (art. 2.5.3.10.16) is the reference standard used to support personal use of a medicine. [7]
- No Colombian statute or resolution specifically scheduling named research peptides such as BPC-157 or TB-500 as controlled substances was located; their unlawful status appears to derive from the general lack of sanitary registration rather than from narcotics scheduling, and this point is inference from adjacent medicines law rather than a direct source. (No reliable source found for this point -- flagged as unverified rather than stated as fact.)