Buy ‘miracle’ weight-loss jab Ozempic online, and you could end up with a fake that puts your life at risk… writes scientist and broadcaster VIVIENNE PARRY

The hype around ‘miracle’ obesity jab semaglutide has reached fever pitch. Not only does it cause patients who take it to lose up to a fifth of their weight without really dieting or doing any additional exercise, but it was announced last week that it also cuts the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

It would be great news, if anyone could actually get hold of the stuff.

You see, ever since rumours that reality TV star Kim Kardashian had used it to slim down and fit into a red carpet gown, demand has been off the chart, vastly outstripping supplies. Endless articles hailed it ‘Hollywood’s worst-kept slimming secret’ – and everyone from Elon Musk to Boris Johnson admitted to trying it.

The upshot: a worldwide shortage. Semaglutide is made in a single factory in Denmark and manufacturer Novo Nordisk say stock issues will last well into 2024.

The biggest issue is that, aside from the magical weight-loss effects, type 2 diabetics also need semaglutide to stop their blood sugars rising into the danger zone.

In a bid to conserve what little there is for these patients, UK health chiefs at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have asked doctors to stop offering it for weight loss at all.

A cynic might look at all this and say, well, it’s all the kind of advertising money can’t buy. But my biggest concern is that, amid all this hysteria, something inevitable has happened. Fake semaglutide is being sold, sometimes for more than £150 a dose, including in the UK.

The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the MHRA recorded the first seizure of counterfeit semaglutide – brand name Ozempic – in May. And I worry this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Since then, fakes have been discovered by regulators in dozens of countries including Australia, Ireland, Nigeria and Turkey.

Last month, the Swiss medicines regulator warned against buying drugs from unreliable sources after several people had to be admitted to hospital after using bogus semaglutide.

In one case, the injector pen had contained insulin, packaged as Ozempic. If too much insulin is injected, blood sugar can drop to fatally low levels in seconds.

And as fast as regulators across the world shut down websites selling the drug, more spring up. Just a few weeks back, the MoS uncovered a number of websites flogging Ozempic as a slimming aid, flouting the MHRA guidance.

How do these online pharmacies have stock when none on the High Street do?

The World Health Organisation has now alerted countries to the potential issue of fake Ozempic and is collecting information to try and quantify the extent of the problem. Counterfeits can be contaminated with other drugs, contain higher, or lower, doses than that which is written on the pack – or may simply contain no active ingredients at all.

Another big plus for criminals is that patients hoping to get hold of it to combat obesity prefer the anonymity of online pharmacies, because weight is so stigmatised.

And online sales means that people of normal weight, who would be refused a prescription in person, can lie with impunity to get it. Neither of the groups above are likely to report the fact that they have been duped to authorities.

In addition, because Ozempic doesn’t work for everyone, people, including doctors, have a low index of suspicion if results are poor.

This is why it’s so hard for regulators to pick up fakes, despite being confident of the many that must be in circulation.

As Oksana Pyzik, a pharmacist at University College London and founder of Fight the Fakes, an organisation dedicated to reducing global medicines fraud, says: ‘Organised criminals make more money from [counterfeit medication] than selling heroin – and they do less time for it if caught.’

She is not surprised by this latest twist in the story of semaglutide: ‘Criminals always pivot to the next big thing. During Covid, it was fake antivirals and dodgy PPE, now it’s Ozempic.’

Could fakes also make their way into High Street pharmacies?

It can, and does, happen. At some point in the supply chain, genuine medicines are removed by criminals from their shipping cartons and swapped with counterfeits.

The genuine drugs are sold on while the chemist gets the duds. Gangs choose the medicines carefully – for instance, some years ago, fake Lipitor (a cholesterol lowering statin) entered the retail supply chain in the UK.

The scam was discovered after a police raid came across batches of the counterfeit drugs – but not before thousands of packs had been sold to pharmacists. Some, possibly hundreds, of these packs were then handed out to patients.

When people think of fake medicines they think typically of scandals in China, where 13,000 children needed hospital treatment in 2008, after being given counterfeit infant formula cut with melamine, a type of plastic.

Or cough syrup laced with antifreeze that’s been implicated in mass poisonings and deaths in Panama, Bangladesh, Argentina, Nigeria, India (twice), Indonesia, Uzbekistan and The Gambia between 1992 and 2022.

But the MHRA identified more than 15,000 falsified medicines packs in circulation in the UK between 2020 and 2022 – most of which were being sold online. It’s thought that one in ten people in the UK have bought fake medication or medical products on the internet, with diet and weight loss drugs a prime target for criminals.

Laura Wilson, Scottish Director of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society had some advice: ‘If you’re getting medicines online, it should only be from a UK registered pharmacy website, regulated by the General Pharmaceutical Council.

‘If you scroll to the bottom of a sites homepage, their registration number should be clearly displayed next to a green cross, under the title ‘Registered Pharmacy’.

‘You can cross-check this on the General Pharmaceutical Council website, at pharmacyregulation.org, which has a searchable register.’

It sounds long-winded, but it’s worth it. And regardless of whether a site is registered, I’d avoid any that are willing right now to provide semaglutide for weight loss, which is currently prohibited.

• If you think you have a fake medicine, please tell the MHRA through its Yellow Card scheme, at yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk. For more information about how to stay safe visit fakemeds.campaign.gov.uk.