Six online pharmacy and health ads banned, several for promoting prescription-only weight-loss medicines, with 'food noise' and 'no more needles' claims ruled out of bounds.
The Advertising Standards Authority has banned ads from six online pharmacies and health firms, several of them for promoting prescription-only weight-loss medicines such as Mounjaro and Wegovy to the public, which is against the law. All six rulings published on Wednesday were upheld, and they are the latest in an enforcement project on weight-loss jabs that the regulator has been running for more than a year.
The rulings cover Care Pharma Bradford, Express Healthcare, trading as pharmacyonline, Juniper Technologies UK, MedExpress, Menwell, trading as Do Health, and Simple Online Healthcare, trading as Simple Online Pharmacy. The ads ran on platforms including Facebook and Google search. Several were also found to have made medicinal claims or promoted unlicensed products, and Do Health was ruled against for misleading health claims.
In the MedExpress case, a Facebook ad promised to help people “silence food noise”, cut cravings and “feel fuller for longer”. MedExpress argued it was promoting a range of weight-loss options, not just prescription drugs. The ASA said at least a significant minority of people would read those claims as pointing to a prescription medicine, and the landing page showed branded Wegovy and Mounjaro pens, creating a clear route to them. That broke CAP Code rule 12.12, according to the ruling.
The others followed the same pattern. Juniper’s Google search ad offered “50% Off” and promised users could “Lose Up To 23% Of Your Body Weight”, with Wegovy on the landing page. Simple Online Pharmacy advertised the new weight-loss pills before they were even licensed, with “NO NEEDLE. COMING SOON”, and then ran “ORAL WEIGHT MANAGEMENT APPROVED IN THE UK” with “NO MORE NEEDLES” once they were.
Weight-loss jabs are one of the biggest consumer health markets in the country, and the online pharmacies selling them have found every way possible to advertise without naming the drug. “Food noise” has become a code word for exactly that, and the ASA has now made clear that code words count. Brands cannot get round a ban on advertising a medicine by describing what it does instead.
The regulator has been unusually busy on health and food claims this autumn, from Huel to Whitworths. For the rules that apply to medicines and health products, see our guide to UK advertising rules, and if you see an ad you think breaks them, here is how to complain.
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