Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has announced the world’s largest seizure of unlicensed weight-loss medicines after dismantling an illegal factory producing counterfeit jabs labelled as containing tirzepatide the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro.
In a statement on Friday, the MHRA said it confiscated 2,000 injection pens falsely branded as containing tirzepatide and retatrutide an experimental obesity drug also developed by Eli Lilly that remains in clinical trials. Tens of thousands of empty pens and raw chemicals were also recovered during the raid.
The discovery marks the first illegal manufacturing site of its kind uncovered in the United Kingdom. The agency described the operation as part of an intensified global crackdown on counterfeit and unregulated weight-loss drugs increasingly trafficked through online and underground markets.
Eli Lilly commended the MHRA’s efforts, describing the action as “a direct strike against the criminal elements that are risking people’s lives.” The company warned that consumers purchasing black-market medicines have “no way of knowing what they actually contain.”
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Health Minister Wes Streeting lauded the seizure as “a victory in the fight against the shameless criminals who are putting lives at risk by peddling dangerous and illegal weight-loss jabs to make a quick buck.”
“These unregulated products, made with no regard for safety or quality, posed a major risk to unwitting customers,” Streeting added.
Both tirzepatide and retatrutide are part of a new generation of injectable treatments that mimic gut hormones to suppress appetite and regulate blood sugar. However, under Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) rules, such weight-loss medicines are available only to eligible patients, while private access can cost hundreds of pounds per month.
In the United States, some individuals have reportedly turned to purchasing raw ingredients online to self-manufacture GLP-1-based injections like semaglutide, the compound used in Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy amid high retail prices and limited availability.
Health experts warn that such do-it-yourself formulations carry serious safety risks, including contamination, incorrect dosages and lack of regulatory oversight.
