The BMJ investigation highlighted the failure of UK regulators, including the MHRA and ASA, to effectively enforce laws governing prescription drug advertising, particularly for weight loss drugs like Wigoby. This can result in poor oversight, lack of sanctions, and compromised patient safety.
Experts have complained of numerous complaints about Wegobee's online advertising and criticized regulators for not imposing sanctions.
Recently published research results BMJ A UK organization tasked with protecting the public from prescription drug advertising has revealed that its failure to enforce current laws is exposing patients to potential harm from weight loss drugs.
Legal responsibility for regulating the advertising of medicines in the UK rests with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on behalf of the Secretary of State for Health. However, there is also a system of self-regulation with many bodies operating their own codes of practice, such as the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
but BMJ It has been revealed that the MHRA has not issued a single sanction for prescription drugs in the past five years. Additionally, of the 16 cases in which the MHRA took action requesting changes to advertising for weight loss drugs between June 2022 and July 2023, all were triggered by external complaints rather than internal mechanisms and resulted in sanctions. Nothing came of it.
James Cave, Editor-in-Chief Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB)The BMJ, which specializes in drug safety, said sanctions and a lack of internal oversight are weak incentives for companies to refrain from advertising prescription drugs.
Wegovy Online Advertising Concerns
He became concerned about inadequate regulation after an online search for the prescription-only weight loss drug Wegoby (semaglutide) brought up what appeared to be “an entire list of advertisements”, but he said he became concerned about inadequate regulation when searching for the prescription-only weight loss drug WeGoby (semaglutide). The side effects are unknown. .
web search by BMJ The terms “Wegovy”, “pharmacy” and “UK” have hundreds of thousands of hits, including a blog post from Pharmadoctor, a website that helps pharmacists serve patients. It was.
A PharmaDoctor blog post titled “All About Wegovy” states: If Wegovy is right for you, your pharmacist can offer it to you. ”
In October, Shai Mlinari, associate professor of sociology at Lund University, and Piotr Ozieranski, senior lecturer in social and policy sciences at the University of Bath, filed a complaint with the MHRA alleging illegal promotion of prescription drugs.
In it, they said they were “appalled” that the company was promoting Wegovy “directly to the public” and that a blog post called “All About Wegovy” was prominently linked from the patient-facing homepage. Stated.
The post states, “Your Pharmadoctor partner pharmacist is available to discuss weight loss options, whether it's Wegovy or other treatments,” and to help you find drug prices and local pharmacists. A link is provided.
Inappropriate response between MHRA and pharmacists
In response, the MHRA said that following an investigation, references to Wegovy on PharmaDoctor's patient homepage were “removed in line with our guidance”. But only the link and the word “Wegovy” were removed from the patient-facing homepage, and the blog post remained online.
PharmaDoctor CEO Graham Thoms told the BMJ that PharmaDoctor's sole purpose was to inform patients about Wegoby and that the blog post had not been removed because the MHRA had not requested that the blog post be removed. He said he had left it online.
But Mr Cave said the MHRA's website-focused approach was “totally outdated”. Rather than accessing a website from the homepage, people “just use a search engine,” he said. When I searched for “Wegovy,” “pharmacy,” and “UK,” posts by pharmacists came up first.
Over the past year, Mr Cave has lodged more than a dozen complaints with the MHRA and ASA regarding the promotion of semaglutide, but has been disappointed with the results.
“These companies have ignored complaints from the ASA and the MHRA, squirmed and squirmed their way out, and continued to operate regardless,” he said. Cave also criticized the organization for appearing to rely on complaints from individuals to highlight online advertising that violates its rules.
MHRA reported. BMJ The company said it actively monitors prescription drug advertising, but did not answer questions about how many people are responsible for this work.
An ASA spokesperson said the organization also takes prescription drug advertising seriously and is expanding its oversight of online advertising with the help of AI.
References: “Lack of oversight of semaglutide advertising could harm patients, warns critics,” by Hristio Boytchev, December 13, 2023. BMJ.
DOI: 10.1136/bmj.p2919
This research was funded by the BMJ Research Department.
