A production line of Wegovy injection pens for the Asian market at the Novo Nordisk A/S pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Hillerod, Denmark, on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024.
One interpretation of the law of supply and demand is that when demand outstrips supply, scammers get busy. That's certainly the case with the super-popular weight-loss drugs from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
As millions of Americans are prescribed injectable Ozempic and Mounjaro to treat type 2 diabetes, and Wegovy and Zepbound for obesity -- and countless more without prescriptions seek them as "vanity drugs" to shed unwanted pounds -- the manufacturers can't keep up production. The GLP-1s, as they're known, are pricey, too, and insurance often doesn't cover them, provided consumers can find them.
That confluence of factors has laid the groundwork not only for a confusing online marketplace for compounded versions of the drugs -- allowed by the Food and Drug Administration when proprietary ingredients are determined to be in short supply -- but a proliferation of nefarious scams offering to sell both brand-name and counterfeit GLP-1s on websites and social media platforms.
"Scammers take advantage of human emotion and human want, and the emotion and want now is that everybody wants to lose weight," said Eric Feinberg, vice president of content moderation for the Coalition for a Safer Web. "It's a perfect audience to use online to take advantage of people psychologically and emotionally."
Consumers have received Lilly- and Novo-branded GLP-1s from unauthorized sellers, counterfeit versions, completely different medications or nothing at all -- other than an expensive rip-off. Most disturbing is that Novo reported awareness of 14 deaths and 144 hospitalizations related to compounded semaglutide usage as per mid-November.
Within the past year, cybersecurity experts uncovered numerous accounts on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram among others where illegal business was conducted. In May, an investigation revealed how consumers flocked to these platforms seeking branded or illicit GLP-1s without prescriptions.
"They send a tracking number from a delivery service that shows you where your package is," explained Tom Galvin from Digital Citizens Alliance. "But it's BS."
No-delivery ploys can exact serious financial tolls on victims; however more alarming cases involve receiving untrustworthy products or those sourced from invalid companies according to Abhishek Karnik from McAfee.
"The more scary ones are where you do get a product," Karnik noted about dubious deliveries which could pose health risks due lack verification authenticity sources involved transactions themselves inherently risky nature presented through scam emails texts listings marketplaces alike."
The Rise in Phishing Attempts
- Karnik's team identified over 367k phishing attempts between May-August
- An increase by135% found risky URLs during same period
JAMA Network Open published study results August international researchers discovered global internet pharmacy sites advertising semaglutide sale among operations found were illegal operating valid licenses selling meds w/o prescriptions shipping unregistered falsified products purchases made delivered recent CNBC investigation explored murky world counterfeit weight-loss findings included UK seizure hundreds appeared Ozempic pens actually insulin relabeled also discovery Lilly retatrutide novel clinical trials marketed public.