Regulators are aware of reports of people buying an unlicensed weight loss drug from pharmacies, an executive at the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) sister organisation today (October 12) suggested.
Taylor Meanwell, compliance executive at the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), made the comment at this year’s Pharmacy Show in Birmingham during a Q&A on the regulation of weight management medicines.
A member of the audience had asked the panel for advice after hearing reports that some of their patients had bought retatrutide - an unlicensed and unapproved drug currently in clinical trials for obesity - from pharmacies.
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“I’ve got a number of patients who’ve reportedly been able to buy [retatrutide] online and from the pharmacy,” they said.
“So we need to know how to…get ahead of the curve in terms of how we manage unlicensed [and] unregulated medicines,” the audience member added.
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Meanwell told delegates that the reports are “being looked at”.
“On the retatrutide issue - that is being looked at, just to let you know,” he said.
The CAP is responsible for writing the Advertising Codes alongside its sister organisation the advertising regulator.
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It comes after City of London police appealed to the public for help in August in tracing Christina Parfitt, 40, who was wanted “in connection with the illegal selling of counterfeit weight loss medicines including Mounjaro and Ozempic”.
An investigation was launched following a referral claiming that a woman “had been advertising the sale of counterfeit goods including weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Ozempic online and at significantly reduced prices”, the police said.
It discovered that an “organised crime group” was involved in the sale and distribution of the drugs without a prescription or licence, including allegedly selling retatrutide, the force said.
