The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) took down 150 social media posts “actively” selling counterfeit weight loss drugs in 2024, its deputy director of criminal enforcement Andy Morling told C+D.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with C+D last month (December 19), he revealed that social media has “become the new front line” for the sale of such medicines.
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“Criminals are now selling through social media rather than websites and they’re selling the raw, powdered, active pharmaceutical ingredient, rather than trying to counterfeit the branded product,” Morling said.
“We’re seeing vials containing powder being sold on social media and in beauty salons [and] we’re seeing prefilled syringes being sold as well,” he added.
Although the threat from counterfeit weight loss drugs remains “steady” and is not increasing, he said, “the demand is still there – and to some extent it’s still an unmet demand”.
“Home brew kits”
The products “are now not anywhere near as sophisticated as they were”, he explained, but this makes the weight loss drugs “harmful in another way”.
“Who knows the lack of sterility that’s been used in producing these home brew kits...and what’s in them,” he said.
Read more: Eating disorder sufferer takes 3 A&E trips after taking Lloyds online doctor Mounjaro
But Morling told C+D that it’s most likely “not organised criminals” who are selling these illicit weight loss drugs.
“A lot of the people that are selling these things on social media...don’t realise what they’re doing is criminal”, he added.
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“They probably don’t even realise it’s a medicine they’re selling - they think it’s just some sort of beauty treatment...or cosmetics”, he said.
“It’s more so people who are trying to make a few quid off people’s misfortune and vulnerability,” he added.
“New narrative”
Morling, however, told C+D that there “is a possibility that there is a new narrative emerging now on social media that will be helpful”.
The MHRA is trying to “get the message out there” that it is “not a good thing to do – to buy these products online in that way”, he said.
“The good news is that I think people are getting the message now, so I hope that part of it will subside during 2025,” he added.
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It comes as the MHRA this week (December 30) warned people against buying weight loss medication without a prescription from “beauty salons, websites and on social media”.
“Criminals go to great lengths to make their website storefronts look authentic and convincing, so before you buy any medicine online you should exercise caution,” Morling warned.
Meanwhile, a former social media influencer last month revealed that he took three trips to A&E in a 48-hour period after taking Mounjaro purchased from Lloydspharmacy Online Doctor.
