Sky News traces online black market in unlicensed weight loss drug retatrutide

Sky News has traced an online black market in retatrutide, known as RETA, a weight loss drug that has not been licensed for human use in the UK or anywhere else. According to Sky News, the drug is still undergoing clinical trials in the US, where it is being developed by Lilly, but underground labs are making their own versions and selling them through social media and messaging apps.

In a report by Barnaby Papadopoulos, Sky News said it found adverts on social media and was directed through a WhatsApp number to a seller based in Shenzhen, China. The seller offered bulk orders, according to Sky News. The seller said Royal Mail was normally used for UK shipping and offered a 10% discount for payment in a certain cryptocurrency. Sky News was sent pictures of vials labelled for research purposes only, videos of a purported factory and lab test results claiming to show purity. The seller described the product as a laboratory research chemical and said the buyer bore responsibility for complying with local laws.

Faith Earth, a beautician in Yorkshire, told Sky News she bought Retta from a seller on Facebook. She described a severe allergic reaction, saying she could feel her throat closing and shouted for someone to call an ambulance. She said she could have died.

Sky News reported that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which regulates medicines in the UK, had raided an industrial unit in Birmingham and found thousands of fake weight loss jabs. The broadcaster said the confiscated products had a street value of £2 million. An MHRA official told Sky News that buyers could not know what was in the product because it was manufactured by criminal organised gangs.

Sky News also reported that six UK-based TikTok accounts it flagged had been removed. According to the report, TikTok said it had removed content that breached its community guidelines. According to Sky News, Meta, which owns Facebook and WhatsApp, said it prohibited the buying and selling of pharmaceutical or illegal drugs on its platforms. Sky News said Meta had reported or taken down more than 14,000 websites and social media platforms across 100 countries. In the report, the UK medical director for Lilly urged social media platforms to be more vigilant about sellers claiming to offer medicines for human use.

Faith Earth said she would not touch retatrutide again. Sky News said many others were likely to keep buying, and that people at home and abroad saw a chance to make money.