Pharmaceutical companies are warning of a rise in knockoff drugs

Pharmaceutical companies are raising the warning flag about an emerging but worrying trend in the medical space: fake versions of the companies' drugs. The concern about knockoff drugs flooding the marketplace has led some of the biggest conglomerates in the industry to release official statements urging consumers to be extra cautious when it comes to their products. 

This trend in knockoff drugs has mainly been seen in the area of diabetes drugs, several of which are also commonly used for weight loss. The problem has gotten so concerning that even the World Health Organization (WHO) has weighed in. How are these companies trying to combat the surge of fake pharmaceuticals? 

What have the pharmaceutical companies said?

The two main companies sounding the alarm are Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. The Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly released an open letter about two of its diabetes/weight loss products, tirzepatide medications Mounjaro and Zepbound. There is a "proliferation of fake or counterfeit products that are advertised or designed to look like Lilly's genuine FDA-approved Mounjaro and Zepbound medications," the company said. 

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These knockoff products are "often advertised and sold online, through social media, or at certain med-spas" but "may contain no medicine, the wrong medicine, incorrect dosages, or multiple medicines mixed together, which could result in serious harm," said the company. There has been a rise in the amount of these drugs on the market because "illegal actors are taking advantage of high demand and short supply" of these medications "in order to sell substandard and falsified versions of these products," said the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. 

Most notable is the packaging of the drugs themselves, since the knockoffs cannot use Eli Lilly's trademarked branding. As a result, the company noted that "any products marketed as tirzepatide and not Mounjaro or Zepbound were not made by the drugmaker and are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration," said The Associated Press. 

Beyond this letter, Eli Lilly also announced it was filing lawsuits against "med-spas, wellness centers and other entities" selling knockoff drugs, their latest in a series of legal actions taken in relation to these products. They have been joined in lawsuits by Novo Nordisk, which manufactures the well-known diabetes/weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy. The company has previously "filed a total of 12 lawsuits against clinics, med spas and compounding pharmacies in the U.S. that claim to offer semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy," said NBC News. A pair of these lawsuits were settled last February, which came as "states have been cracking down on compounded versions of the drug, which they say may contain other ingredients that are not approved by the FDA."

What is the WHO doing about fake drugs?  

The primary global health organization similarly issued cautionary warnings about knockoff versions of the drugs. The WHO put out an alert "[addressing] three falsified batches of semaglutide that were detected in Brazil and the UK in October 2023, and the United States in December 2023," the organization said in a press release, referencing the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. 

These drugs "could be harmful, and if they do not have the necessary raw components can lead to health complications resulting from unmanaged blood glucose levels or weight," said the WHO. The report from the WHO was the organization's first official guidance on these fake drugs. It was also noted by the WHO that as it currently stands, semaglutides are "not part of WHO-recommended treatments for diabetes management due to their current high cost," and the "cost barrier makes these products unsuitable for a public health approach." Currently, the WHO is "working on a rapid advice guideline on possible use of GLP-1 RAs, including semaglutides, for treatment of obesity in adults."

If you do need these medications, how can you protect yourself? It was recommended by the WHO that people taking these products "can take actions such as buying medicines with prescriptions from licensed physicians and avoid buying medicines from unfamiliar or unverified sources, such as those that may be found online."