Medicines regulator of UK has said it had made the world’s largest seizure of unlicensed weight-loss medicines, dismantling a factory that made jabs labelled as containing the ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro.
Global pharmaceutical companies and regulators have raised alarms over a surge in counterfeit and unregulated weight-loss drugs, which are being trafficked globally and sold illegally online and through underground networks.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said it had seized 2,000 injection pens labelled as containing tirzepatide- the ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound – and retatrutide, an experimental obesity drug also made by Eli Lilly, which is still in trials.
Tens of thousands of empty pens were also seized, along with raw chemicals. Eli Lilly said in a statement to Reuters the crackdown was “a direct strike against the criminal elements that are risking people’s lives.”
“People who purchase counterfeit or black market medicines (those sold from unregulated sources) have no way of knowing what they actually contain.”
Eli Lilly applauded the MHRA’s action and said it looked forward to increased enforcement moving forward.
