Unlicensed – and potentially deadly –products seized in crackdown on illegal trade in weight-loss medicines
A factory in Northampton manufacturing counterfeit weight-loss jabs has been raided and dismantled by a government agency.
Tens of thousands of empty weight-loss pens ready to be filled, raw chemical ingredients, and more than 2,000 unlicensed retatrutide and tirzepatide pens were seized in the raid, conducted by officers from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), supported by Northamptonshire police.
Retatrutide, which is unlicensed in the UK, is an experimental injection developed by the US drugmaker Eli Lilly. Tirzepatide, more commonly known under its brand name Mounjaro, is available on the the NHS for weight loss for patients who fulfil a certain criteria of comorbidities.
The site, on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Northampton, is believed to have been used for the large-scale manufacture, packaging, and distribution of unlicensed – and potentially deadly – weightloss products to customers.
