Two people have been arrested after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) “largest ever” seizure of unlicensed weight loss drugs, the regulator has revealed.
The MHRA announced last week that its raid of a country estate near Northampton on May 28 uncovered “around 12,000 doses of unlicensed weight loss medicines”.
It said two male suspects aged 29 were “arrested on suspicion of offences under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012” and that “enquiries are ongoing”.
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The regulator said the bust “dismantled what is believed to be a major illicit manufacturing and distribution operation”.
“The property is believed to have been used as a large-scale facility to manufacture, assemble and distribute unlicensed weight loss medicines, including retatrutide and tirzepatide, as well as peptide products,” it added.
And it said officers “seized substantial quantities of packaging materials” and “what are believed to be pharmaceutical substances used in the illicit manufacture of the products”.
“No hiding place”
MHRA Criminal Enforcement Unit head Andy Morling said the “hugely successful operation” has demonstrated “the MHRA’s unwavering commitment to ensuring there is no hiding place for those who cynically put the public’s health at risk for profit”.
“Medicines regulation isn’t discretionary - it exists to protect people,” he added.
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“That’s why we continue to target the traffickers who seek to bypass that protection, taking down the infrastructure that supports them and creating a hostile environment for their exploitative and harmful trade.”
“In addition to disrupting an organised criminal group, I’m confident that dismantling this illicit production facility will have prevented significant public harm.”
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It comes after over two million doses of illegal medicines worth more than £4m were seized in an “intensive” international operation in March.
The MHRA said last month that the 14-day enforcement operation carried out in the UK was part of Operation Pangea XVIII, the “world’s largest coordinated initiative aimed at tackling the illegal medicines trade”.
