Temple University physician Rohit Soans worries that patients using weight-loss medications may be considering risky options to keep taking these popular drugs.
As new restrictions on popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic kicked in this month, social media forums are being flooded with worried consumers unsure how they would get the drugs, which cost hundreds without insurance coverage. Some recommend seeking them from other countries, outside of federal regulation.
That prospect has physicians like Soans and state authorities raising alarms about the dangers of seeking weight-loss drugs outside of legitimate sources. Law enforcement officials have noted a rise in counterfeit GLP-1 weight-loss drugs that can produce dangerous side effects.
“Patients should be really careful,” said Soans, the medical director of Temple University Hospital’s bariatric surgery division, noting the difficulty that patients face in navigating the shifting availability of GLP-1 drugs.
Ahead of the summer, when more patients might be looking to lose weight, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday is also warning about the dangers of counterfeit GLP-1 drugs. He and 35 other attorneys general from around the country in February asked authorities to step up enforcement around fake drugs.
The attorneys general cited news reports finding dangerous contaminants in GLP-1 drugs purchased online from vendors claiming to supply prescription medications sold commercially as Ozempic, Wegovy, and other brand names.
GLP-1 receptor agonists are now prescribed to about one in eight American adults. They mimic the effects of the GLP-1 hormone to regulate blood sugar levels. Some are approved by the FDA only to treat diabetes or cardiovascular disease, but others are approved to encourage weight loss as well.
In a February letter to the FDA, several state attorneys general highlighted reports from the agency as well as coverage in the New York Times and other news outlets about a rise in counterfeit GLP-1 drugs sourced from China, Turkey, and India, which can contain other drugs, contaminants, and “dangerously high amounts of active ingredients.”
They also warned of online shops selling the active ingredients in GLP-1 drugs without prescriptions on social media; these sellers, too, sometimes use ingredients sourced from outside the U.S.
In some cases, counterfeit drugs have landed people in the hospital, including three people in the United States whose blood sugar levels plummeted after, authorities suspect, they took fake Ozempic, Reuters reported.
“These counterfeit products flooding the market can cause harm, and I strongly advise anyone shopping for GLP-1 drugs to use extreme caution,” Sunday said in a news release last month. “I continue to urge the FDA to use its investigative, inspection, and enforcement powers to protect consumers.”
And, Sunday and other attorneys general said, the FDA should more closely monitor compounding pharmacies that make customized drugs for patients, including GLP-1 drugs, to meet specific needs such as specialized doses or when formulas aren’t commercially available.
Access to weight-loss drugs changing
GLP-1 drug shortages driven by intense demand led the FDA to temporarily allow compounding pharmacies to produce them. With shortages easing, the FDA has banned these pharmacies from continuing to make GLP-1s, though Axios reported some retailers plan to skirt the ban.
In recent months, several insurers have restricted coverage for GLP-1s. And other patients have relied on compounding pharmacies for cheaper versions of the drugs that may not now be available.
At Temple, Soans has not seen any patients who took counterfeit GLP-1 drugs. But, he said, with compounding pharmacies again banned from producing the drugs, patients should avoid purchasing from them.
“The ones that are doing it now are doing it wrong,” he said.
Soans was also concerned that patients who could no longer afford GLP-1 drugs, because they’d either lost insurance coverage or lost access to their compounded forms, might turn to less reputable sources.
“From a patient experience standpoint, it’s really tenuous,” Soans said. “Patients are now going to be looking for other sources [for the drugs] because it’s going to get more expensive.”