Methasterone is an oral anabolic steroid that was never marketed through legitimate channels for medicinal purposes. It was brought to market, instead, in a clandestine fashion as a "designer steroid.”
The synthesis of methasterone is first mentioned in the literature in 1956 in connection with research conducted by Syntex Corporation in order to discover a compound with anti-tumor properties.[1] This initial mention is elaborated upon in a 1959 research journal article, where its method of synthesis is discussed in greater detail, its tumor inhibiting properties are verified, and it is noted as being a “potent orally active anabolic agent exhibiting only weak androgenic activity.”[2] The results of subsequent assays to determine methasterone’s anabolic and androgenic activity were published in Vida’s Androgens and Anabolic Agents, a dated but still standard reference, where it was noted that methasterone possessed the oral bioavailability of methyl-testosterone while being 400% as anabolic and 20% as androgenic, yielding a Q-ratio (also known as an anabolic to androgenic ratio) of 20, which is considered very high.[3]
