Let’s say that I get sleeping sickness. My disease is far along, and the only two treatments are melarsoprol or eflornithine. Now, eflornithine is the drug of choice, as melarsoprol is fatal itself around 12% of the time. The rub is, eflornithine hasn’t been manufactured since 1999.
If I was in need of one of these two compounds, would it be possible to manufacturer my own eflornithine in lieu of the available melarsoprol? That is to say, if I had a chemist friend with a modern lab well-stocked with precursors, is the synthesis of eflornithine (difluoromethylornithine or DFMO) practical, could it be done in the time between diagnosis of a serious case of sleeping sickness and when it became fatal or caused serious brain damage, and would such a manufacture be legal in the US?