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

Online pharmacies are no longer allowed to advertise for weight loss injections, but he managed advertising observer as a part of a pressure defined as the “wild West” culture of online sales.

In the United Kingdom, advertising prescribing all weight loss jabs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro is illegal to the public. However, a Guardian investigation has previously found some online pharmacies who explicitly breaking these rules or benefiting from gray areas to watch the drugs to the public.

Now the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has issued nine new decisions for advertisers to determine open precedents.

. Although new decisions can continue to talk about weight loss injections on the websites of pharmacies, pharmacies, on the main pages or landing pages of other connections, advertisements were prohibited from using the expressions of “weight loss injections” and “weight loss pen” and the treatments should be banned as a wider service, including a wider service.

In addition, ASA said that in the context of ADS for weight loss treatments, ads, whether or not the ads, whether or not a liquid bottle or not contain connections to descent pages, which are supported or the only option available.

Experts say that the prohibition of advertising of POMs protects the people by preventing people from being exposed to unnecessary commercial pressure, writing safe prescription and excessive medicalization of daily concerns.

ASA President Nicky Morgan said, “Some of our general strategy is not as harmful as strong prescription drugs, and nothing is not just as harmful prescription drugs,” he said.

ASA was only investigating 13 ads on prescription weight loss drugs, and nine of them are broadcasting today.

To a large extent, it is about ads marked by ASA’s active advertising monitoring system in a monitoring screening in August and September 2024, which is a AI -based approach that sees online ads that may disrupt the rules.

ASA said that the AI ​​monitoring caused 28 million ads in all sectors in 2024 and that 94% of the modified or withdrawal came from the AI ​​system.

The regulator said that the AI ​​system will continue to look for problem ads and help the body will help recurrent criminals. Between February and June this year, he detected more than 20,000 ads from 35 high priority pharmacies and 10,000 of them are for weight loss treatments.

It was found that 80 of these ads use or refer to the images of the most commonly used weight loss pens, or to imply the use of poms without mentioning the drug.

Although ASA has more potentially problematic advertisements for weight loss treatments in the public field, the selected for the latest investigations represents the issues played in the advertisement.

In the latest decisions, advertisements that would fall into the foul of ASA were those who encouraged “weight loss treatments çok directly connected to web pages, where the only treatment options are POMs.

“Previously, it was a little gray area, they could avoid putting a lot of things on a landing page, which is unacceptable on a home page.

Decisions also close the gaps that pharmacies have a weight loss consultancy – a permitted promotional – that is advertised, but only as possible treatments to connect to landing pages for services with weight loss injections.

Morgan should have a real option or options to work with patients, and he knew that both sides actually know what they actually do, and that they have resulted in a jab to be mail to them because they can use them, ”Morgan said.

Those who impressed were also caught by new decisions: a approval complaint was against an Instagram post by Gemma Collins, a TV personality, which introduced the weight loss service Yayen.

Collins referred to the use of a weight loss prescribed in NHS, which referred to the use of a weight loss medication prescribed in NHS, and Collins’ website contained links to the three newspaper articles explaining how Collins loses weight by using “GLP-1 weight loss injections”.

Morgan said that new decisions will determine precedent and guide pharmacies, and more decisions are expected to clarify the scenery.

Weight loss caused an explosion in Jabs and not only to help people to pound, but also to deal with numerous other health conditions, a burst on online sales. The reliability of drugs has been increased with a political approval.

This week, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said to LBC Radio: “Weight loss is the speech of the Jabs Commons; half of my colleagues are on them and judging the rest: ‘You must be on them.’

However, while the streeting plans to expand the public access to Jabs, making them more widely available in NHS, while many of them buy drugs with special recipes with online pharmacies and make their promotions into a profitable job.

An important question continues whether new decisions will correct most of the illegal sales, or whether advertisers will continue to break the rules, as some pharmacies do.

ASA said that pharmacies who have been found to have violated the advertisement rules will be contacted and that they would be instructed to remove their ads or order. If a company does not interact, the guard dog can make more operations such as working with platforms to be under problematic paid ads.

Violations may also be marked to the drugs and health products regulatory agency (MHRA) and the General Pharmaceutical Council (MHRA) and the General Pharmaceutical Council (MHRA) and the General Pharmaceutical Council (MHRA) and the owner of the pharmacy, who have the authority to apply sanctions such as fines and court transactions in case of MHRA.

However, while Morgan says that compliance is good, decisions show that he does not respond to ASA when some online pharmacies are challenged.

Dr. Piotr Ozieranski of Bath University welcomed new decisions, but said that regulators should adopt a more hostile attitude towards advertisers who broke rules, including graded financial penalties that may be related to the scale or severity of the company turnover or patient risk.

“This will make the regulation more harmoniously with the seriousness of the damages that are in danger – not only misleading advertisements, but also possible consequences for patient safety, excessive medicalization and mental health.”

At the UCL Pharmacy School, Oksana Pyzik, an associate professor of pharmacy and policy, also called for more powerful actions.

“These decisions represent the naked minimum article in addressing how weight loss POMs are introduced to blur the line between advertising against POMs,” he said that companies continue to break the rules and even continue to attract weight loss jabs through famous approvals on social media.