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As part of an ongoing crackdown on illegal advertising for weight-loss prescription only medicines, the Advertising Standards Authority has published nine rulings involving advertisers who have been promoting such drugs to the public.

Two online pharmacies – PharmaRx (t/a Cloud Pharmacy) and Express Healthcare (t/a Pharmacyonline) – are among the nine offenders flagged by the ASA. Both were challenged over adverts that the ASA said breached the Code of Advertising Practice by promoting POMs to the public. Neither responded to the ASA’s inquiries, it says.

The rulings make “crystal clear that all injectable forms of weight-loss medication are prescription-only medicines and can’t be advertised”, says the ASA.

Advertising named weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy, Mounjaro, Ozempic and Saxenda, is already banned, but the rulings establish that the use of various claims and images (including unbranded medical injection pens) that indirectly advertise these medicines is also banned.

The ASA says that the following claims are references to weight-loss prescription medicines and aren’t allowed:  

• Weight loss injections
• Weight loss pen
• Obesity treatment Jab
• GLP-1 (in the context of an injectable medication) 
• Weight-loss medication
• Abbreviating the name of a weight-loss POM.

The rulings also make clear that, in the context of ads for weight-loss, advertisers cannot feature:

• Unbranded medical injection pens 
• Partial images of a branded medical injection pen 
• An image of a vial of liquid on the front.

Beyond that, adverts can’t contain links to landing pages on websites where named POMs are promoted, or are the only available option, says the ASA.

The rulings are part of a bigger piece of work the ASA is carrying out in this area. Since issuing a warning to weight-loss prescription medicine advertisers in December, the Authority has been “carrying out extensive monitoring and enforcement work aided by our AI-powered Active Ad Monitoring system”.

“We’re seeing an improvement in advertisers sticking to the rules in some areas but there’s more to do and we’re lining up further action,” the ASA warns.

Dionne Spence, chief enforcement officer at the GPhC, said the pharmacy regulator works “very closely” with the ASA and MHRA to tackle non-compliant adverts for prescription medicines and has referred businesses to the ASA over suspected breaches of the code.

She commented: “We will be carefully reviewing the ASA rulings for the six pharmacies registered with the GPhC to consider if we need to take any further enforcement action in these cases.

“The ASA’s review of adverts from 35 pharmacies founds that 99% of adverts complied with the legal requirement not to name the specific medicine.

“But the ASA’s rulings have made clear that the use of various terms like “GLP-1s” or certain images, such as images of unbranded injection pens, that indirectly advertise medicines used for weight-management are also prohibited. 

“We will be highlighting this to pharmacy owners and superintendent pharmacists, so they understand this and can make sure their adverts comply with the law and rules going forward.”

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