October 27, 2025: U.K. regulators bust illicit site making unlicensed retatrutide and tirzepatide pens
The United Kingdom’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency dismantled an illicit drug factory making weight-loss drugs in a warehouse in Northampton last week. Officers with the agency’s Criminal Enforcement Unit seized manufacturing equipment, cash, tens of thousands of empty injection pens, raw chemical ingredients, and more than 2,000 pens filled with tirzepatide and retatrutide —the latter of which aren’t legitimately available anywhere in the world, because retatrutide is still in clinical trials.
Authorities stated this was the largest single seizure of trafficked weight loss medicines worldwide.
Retatrutide pens seized by MHRA in the Northampton bust.
Domestic News
A pharmacy was fined $1mm for compounding weight loss injectables in uninspected settings. A judge stopped three (more) companies from delivering imported medicines to U.S. patients.
Pennsylvania’s Department of State fined Boothwyn Pharmacy, of Kennett Square, a million dollars for packaging and dispensing approximately 30,000 injectable weight loss and diabetes medications in unlicensed and unpermitted spaces without disclosing the activity to state regulators. The state also placed the pharmacy’s license on probation.
The fine follows a series of regulatory actions involving Boothwyn:
- In June 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned the pharmacy for compounding deficiencies, such as importing bulk glucosamine from non-registered facilities and falsifying certificates of analysis to conceal poor endotoxin test results in animal medicines.
- The California Board of Pharmacy followed FDA’s warning with a 17-day cease and desist order for, among other things, the pharmacy’s failure to notify patients when medicines failed bacterial endotoxin, sterility, or potency tests.
- Pennsylvania’s Board of Pharmacy fined Boothwyn $2,000 for sterility issues and stocking expired ingredients in December 2023.
Gilead Sciences v Meritain Health is a game-changer for self-funded health plans, PBMs, and benefits administrators.
A federal judge granted Gilead Sciences a temporary restraining order to stop CanaRx, ElectRx, and ScriptSourcing from providing patients with non-FDA-approved, imported versions of their medicines. The action is the latest in a suit Gilead filed in December 2024 against a network of companies that allegedly supplied patients with unapproved Gilead medicines via alternative funding programs (AFPs) to save employer-sponsored health plans money. Read about Gilead Sciences v Meritain Health.
Police in Pittsburg, California, confiscated more than 100,000 counterfeit prescription pills and drug manufacturing equipment from two residences. Photos show that at least one pill press was seized.
Legislation
Keep up with state legislation in the areas of pill presses, prescription drug affordability boards, and drug importation.
Regulators protecting patients in the news
The FDA posted letters warning drug manufacturing companies in Connecticut and Missouri to correct sterility issues in their production of over-the-counter drug products.
The agency also posted a warning letter it sent to an online pharmacy website for the illegal sale of non-FDA-approved prescription opioids, benzodiazepines, and amphetamines.
A screenshot of the site the FDA warned for selling unapproved controlled prescription medicines, October 2025
International News
Welsh news reported on the death of a U.K. woman linked to black market weight-loss injections. More counterfeit cough syrup found in India.
Two women are warning U.K. residents about the dangers of counterfeit weight loss injections; their 53-year-old mother died after receiving illicit semaglutide injections at a beauty salon in May 2025.
India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organization reported a batch of counterfeit cough syrup produced by an unauthorized manufacturer but bearing the brand name of a legitimate company.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control warned Nigerians about the circulation of an unauthorized and unregistered cancer drug, Darzalex (Daratumumab), in the country. The product is not registered in Nigeria and did not pass through authorized Johnson & Johnson distributors.
Customs authorities in Finland intercepted counterfeit oxymorphone pills made of protodesnitazene.
Examples of the counterfeit NAFDAC reported on October 15.