The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has clamped down for the first time on online promotion of oral weight loss drugs.
It found two online pharmacies had broken the rules by promoting unlicenced medicines and prescription-only medicines to the public in adverts for oral GLP-1 treatments.
Simple Online Pharmacy and Pharmacy Online had promoted oral GLP-1 treatments through paid social media ads and website content, including by inviting people to join waiting lists, register their interest and pre-order treatment, the ASA found.
In rulings published online, the regulator found that Simple Online Pharmacy promoted an oral GLP-1 medicine in June days before it had been licensed in the UK.
Pharmacy Online ads promoting the oral Wegovy tablet after it had been licensed as a prescription only medicine were also banned.
Promotions had included a website pop-up inviting people to ‘pre-order’ the medicine and paid social media ads promoting an oral weight-management tablet.
Under UK advertising rules, medicines must be authorised by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) before they can be promoted and medicinal claims cannot be made for an unauthorised medicine.
Once a medicine is licensed as prescription only, it cannot be advertised to the public.
The regulator said the bans were part of wider action being taken to tackle irresponsible ads for weight loss medicines ‘identified for investigation following complaints and intelligence’.
Three further rulings against MedExpress, Juniper and the Care Pharmacy found that ads promoted prescription only medicines to the public, even though the medicines weren’t named directly.
It follows a warning we issued in June to businesses seeking to promote newly licensed medicines for weight management.
The ASA said this was a widespread and high-profile issue and they would continue to monitor ads and emerging trends in this area, working closely with our partners at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the General Pharmaceutical Council.
Advertising them irresponsibly or illegally can put people at risk and tackling the issue remains a priority, the ASA added.
Catherine Drewett, investigations manager at the ASA said: ‘The licencing of oral GLP-1 medicines represents a significant development in treatment options but also new challenges for regulators.
‘We’ve acted quickly as this market has developed and these first rulings make clear that these oral medicines, like prescription-only injections, cannot be advertised to the public.
‘These are powerful medicines so it’s important that ads don’t encourage people to seek treatment in ways that could put them at risk.’
A study earlier this year suggested that one in ten British adults were either taking weight-loss drugs or had plans to do so in the near future.
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