Public ‘at risk’ from illegal weight loss drugs

• UK regulators have warned the public is "at risk" due to a rapidly growing black market for weight-loss drugs and illegally traded medicines.
• The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) seized almost 20 million doses of illegally traded medicines, valued at nearly £45 million, in 2025, including 81,000 doses of GLP-1 drugs over the last three years.
• MHRA's Andy Morling stated that 99 per cent of seized GLP-1 drugs are genuine but unsafely produced, with the black market profit margins rivalling cocaine and heroin, and seizures representing only 10 per cent of the problem.
• Criminals are selling unlabelled weight-loss drugs via social media and beauticians, with some manufacturing fake products, including dangerous insulin-filled pens that "could have killed people."
• The death of Karen McGonigal, allegedly after an illegal semaglutide injection from a beautician, highlights the fatal risks, as the public struggles to differentiate legitimate providers from illegal sellers.

IN FULL

Warning over ‘wild west’ of weight-loss drugs on black market: ‘We can’t arrest our way out of this’