A pharmacist has this month (September 5) been served with a warning by the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) investigating committee after he bought “the entire stock” of Ozempic at a Tesco pharmacy for his private weight loss customers.
Amardip Singh Virdi, registration number 2228172, was working at a Tesco pharmacy in August 2023 when he told two colleagues to dispense the pharmacy’s stock of semaglutide diabetes drug Ozempic to him against private weight loss prescriptions, the determination said.
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During 2023, the UK faced such a shortage of Ozempic injections and such “concern” about the impact on diabetes patients that the NHS issued a safety alert, the GPhC noted.
While Ozempic is licensed in the UK for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and not for weight loss, the regulator said that “it can be used for such under appropriate prescription and directions” and that social media had encouraged its use for weight loss.
Last September, diabetes drug semaglutide was made available for weight management in the UK under the brand name Wegovy.
“Limited stock”
On arriving to work at the pharmacy, Virdi noted that it had “limited stock” of Ozempic but he produced three private prescriptions and “instructed” his colleagues to supply the drug to him, the committee said.
It added that Virdi was “associated” with an aesthetics clinic that treated patients with the “particularly popular” drug Ozempic “for weight loss reasons”.
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The investigating committee noted that Virdi’s two junior colleagues had expressed “misgivings” at his “persistence” that he should be allowed to purchase the drugs.
But despite their concerns, the pharmacy’s “entire stock” of Ozempic was dispensed to Virdee, it said.
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“In the midst of a national shortage of an essential medicine where an NHS alert was in place, [Virdi] instructed two junior colleagues to supply the entire Tesco stock of Ozempic to him against private prescriptions for use contrary to its licensed use and contrary to the NHS alert,” the committee concluded.
“By no reasonable measure was [he] entitled to secure or attempt to secure Ozempic for use through an aesthetics clinic he was associated with for the benefit of patients using it for weight loss reasons,” it added.
“Private patients over public safety”
The committee revealed that Virdee’s junior colleagues “escalated their concerns” about his behaviour and the following day, he was refunded the money he had paid for the Ozempic “before he removed it from the pharmacy”.
The regulator’s warning cautioned Virdee that “the privilege of being a pharmacist” did not entitle him to “abuse” his “authority over junior colleagues” for his own gain.
Virdee “appeared to prioritise his personal interests in an aesthetics practice and its private patients over public safety considerations”, the GPhC said.
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The investigating committee ruled that Virdi breached five of its standards for pharmacy professionals.
It warned him to “put patient care at the heart of his practice” and to heed the instructions of national patient safety alerts “on the use and supply of life-saving medicines during a national shortage”.
Read the determination in full here.
