Revealed: 2.5m Britons now use weight loss jabs

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Weight loss jabs are being used by 2.5 million people in the UK, The Telegraph can reveal.

Britain’s increasing reliance on the medication means one in 20 adults has turned to the drugs, which are rarely available on the NHS.

The Telegraph has obtained data, never seen publicly, showing that sales of Mounjaro and Wegovy reached 2.5 million in July – up sevenfold from the year before.

Between July and August, sales jumped by a further million – though experts believe much of that was a result of existing patients stockpiling the drugs after manufacturers announced they would put up costs in response to demands from Donald Trump.

Wes Streeting has vowed to make the Ozempic-style injections widely available on the NHS. However, tight rationing means very few people are obtaining free prescriptions, with record numbers going private.

In his speech at the Labour conference last week, the Health Secretary said it was not fair that the wealthy had benefitted most from transformative medicines.

“Weight loss jabs could help us finally defeat obesity,” he said. “The wealthy talk about how they’ve transformed their health, their confidence, their quality of life.”

However, he warned that “the millions who can’t afford them” were losing out, promising to ensure that such medicines “are available not just to some, but to all”.

Figures show that 2.49 million packs of Mounjaro and Wegovy were purchased in July, up from 493,000 in the same month last year. These monthly figures were likely to represent the number of patients on the jabs, experts said.

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The data, from the life science analytics company Iqvia, show an unprecedented uptake in private sales of the weight loss injections. Such patients represent more than nine in 10 of those on the jabs.

Private pharmacies, many of which prescribe online, are now charging as much as £389 a month for some jabs that were previously available for less than £200.

Mr Trump triggered a stockpiling frenzy this summer after he complained that Britain and other countries were “freeloading” on the US by paying too little for weight loss drugs, such as Mounjaro, that are manufactured in America.

The panic buying was such that Lilly, one of the leading US drug companies, announced that it was stopping all sales of Mounjaro for several days.

Experts said the surge in August sales was likely to partly reflect sales of multiple packs ahead of the price bump.

Last week, Mr Streeting told a fringe event at the Labour conference that it was “not unreasonable” for Mr Trump to want other countries to pay more for drugs that are costly in the US.

But he said he was determined to ensure that the NHS embarked on a mass rollout so that everyone who could benefit from drugs such as Mounjaro and Wegovy could obtain them in future.

Wegovy contains the same ingredient, semaglutide, used in the better-known medicine Ozempic, which is licensed for treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Millions of people in Britain who are obese and suffer related health problems are technically already eligible for the jabs on the NHS.

But the health service has introduced tight rationing policies, so that just 220,000 people are expected to get free injections for weight loss over the next three years.

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Pilot schemes are already looking at how the drugs could boost productivity and help people return to work.

A source close to the Health Secretary said he was determined to see a change in approach that would mean innovative medicines such as weight loss injections would become widely available far more quickly.

The Tony Blair Institute has suggested weight loss jabs should be offered to up to half the population, using digital first methods, so people do not have to visit a doctor in person.

The institute said a wider rollout would allow £3.5bn to be cut from the benefits bill by getting people back to work.

The revolutionary medicines have been found to reduce the risk of a host of killer diseases. Experts have likened them to the “fountain of youth” because of the way they reduce inflammation in the body, which is linked to multiple diseases of ageing, including heart problems, cancer and dementia.

Trials have shown that the jabs are more powerful than statins, halving heart deaths.

Experts have hailed a “golden age” in obesity treatment, with 150 new treatments, including injections and pills, likely to be available over the next decade.

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