ASA cracks down on online pharmacies advertising weight loss injections | Pharmaceuticals industry

Online pharmacies are no longer authorized to disseminate advertisements for weight loss injections, the advertising watchdog ruled, as part of a repression of what has been described as a “Wild West” culture of online sales.

In the United Kingdom, the advertising of prescription drugs (POM) – which includes all the jabs of weight loss such as Wegovy and Mounjaro – to the public is illegal. However, a Guardian survey previously found certain online pharmacies that break these rules or exploit gray areas to peddle medicines to the public.

Now, standard advertising Authority (ASA) has published nine new decisions which, according to this, will define clear previous for advertisers.

THE ASA said that new decisions meant that even if pharmacies could continue to mention weight loss injections on their websites, provided they were not shown on the home pages or destination pages from other links, advertisements have been prohibited from using the “weight loss injections” and “pende loss” phrases, and treatments should rather be marketed in the context of a wider service a consultation and a prescription.

In addition, the ASA said that in the context of advertisements for weight loss treatments, announcements could not present images of medical injection pens, whether it is brand -free, images of a bottle of liquid on the front, or contain links to destination pages where the names named have been promoted, or were the only option available.

Experts say that the ban on the advertising of POMs protects the public by preventing people from being exposed to excessive commercial pressure, ensuring a safe prescription and avoiding the over-medication of daily concerns.

“Part of our global strategy is to protect vulnerable people from damage, and nothing is as harmful as powerful prescription drugs,” said Nicky Morgan, president of ASA.

ASA had investigated 13 advertisements relating to weight loss drugs only, the results of nine of them published today.

They are largely related to the advertisements reported in a surveillance scanning in August and September 2024 by the ASSA active advertisement monitoring system, an AI -based approach that is proactively looking for online announcements that can break the rules.

ASA said that its AI surveillance had led to the treatment of ads of 28 million people in all sectors in 2024, with 94% of those that have been modified or withdrawn from the AI ​​system.

The regulator said that its AI system would continue to search for problematic ads, helping the body identify the repeat offenders. He has already identified more than 20,000 announcements from 35 high priority pharmacies between February and June this year, including 10,000 for weight loss treatments.

While 80 of these announcements have proven to use directly or mention a weight loss medication name, most of the weight loss pens images used, or strongly involved the use of weight loss applests without naming the medication.

ASA said that although there were much more potentially problematic announcements for weight loss treatments in the public domain, people chosen for recent surveys were representative of advertising problems.

Among the advertisements to fall from ASA in the latest decisions were those promoting “weight loss treatments” which directly linked to web pages where the only treatment options were POM.

“Previously, you know, it was a bit of a gray area, they could mainly get away by putting a lot of things on a destination page, which would simply not be acceptable on a home page. I therefore think that these decisions have committed a fairly large gap there,” said Jess Tye, advances the POM Loss of weight loss project.

Decisions also close the flaw by which pharmacies announce a weight loss consultation – an authorized promotion – but linked to the destination pages for such services which only include weight loss injections than possible treatments.

“There must be a real option or options, that a professional would work with his patient, as opposed to a kind of token consultation, where the two parties know what they really finish with a JAB who will be sent to them by post so that he can use,” said Morgan.

Influencers were also made in new decisions: a confirmed complaint was against an Instagram post by the personality of television Gemma Collins, who promoted the Yazen weight loss service.

The announcement proved to have promoted Poms because Collins referred to the use of a weight loss medication prescribed on the NHS, and because the Yazen website also included links to three newspaper articles, with miniatures that described how Collins had lost weight using the “GLP-1 GLP-1” injections.

Morgan said that new decisions would set precedents and offer advice to pharmacies, with other decisions that should further clarify the landscape.

The boom of weight loss strokes, and their promises not only to help people lose weight, but also to tackle a myriad of other health problems, have led to an explosion in online sales. The credibility of drugs has been further reinforced by political approval.

This week, the Secretary of Health, Wes Street, told LBC Radio: “The jabs of weight loss are the speech of the House of Commons; half of my colleagues are on them and judge the rest of us, saying:” You should be on them. “”

But while streeting plans to expand public access to blows, which makes them more widely available on the NHS, many buy medications by private prescriptions with online pharmacies, promoting a lucrative business.

A key question remains whether new decisions will correct a large part of the illegal sale, or if advertisers will continue to break the rules – as some pharmacies have done.

The ASA said that pharmacies that had violated the advertising rules would be contacted and invited to delete or modify their ad. If a company does not commit, the guard dog could take new measures, such as working with platforms so that the problems have been withdrawn.

Violations can also be reported to the Regulatory Agency for Medicines and Health Products (MHRA) and the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPHC), which have the power to apply sanctions such as fines and legal proceedings, in the case of the MHRA, or to take measures against GPHC, the owner of the pharmacist, the superintendent pharmacist, or the three in the case of the GPHC.

However, even if Morgan said that compliance was good, decisions show that some online pharmacies did not respond to ASA when their advertisements were disputed.

Dr. Piotr Ozieranski, of the University of Bath, praised the new decisions, but said that regulators should adopt a more contradictory attitude towards advertisers found by breaking the rules, including the graduate financial sanctions which could be linked to the rolling of the company or to the scale or the severity of the risks for patients.

“This would lead to regulations more in accordance with the severity of the damage at stake-not only deceptive advertising as such, but its possible consequences for patient safety, over-mediation and mental health,” he said.

Oksana Pyzik, associate professor of pharmacy practice and policy at the UCL School of Pharmacy, also called for a stronger action.

“These decisions represent the bare minimum by examining the promotion of weight loss applests so as to blur the border between advertising health services compared to POMS,” she said, noting that companies have continued to break the rules, some even glamor weight loss thanks to celebrity approvals on social media.