Publications

Med spas need stronger regulation The medical spa industry is expanding so quickly that it's outstripping existing regulatory frameworks: Just thirteen states have issued med spa regulations or guidance and only four of those require med spas to be licensed or registered. Yet these businesses need firm oversight to ensure ...

Prescription Drug Freight Fraud Report, September 2025 Screenshot of a listing for bulk tirzepatide sales, September 2025 Our analysis of data from June and July revealed hundreds of pharmaceutical shipments that entered the U.S. from facilities no one would expect, including unregistered Chinese exporters and alternative medicine clinics abroad. We ...

Handout: The fake pill trade hasn't gone away It's been 10 years since deadly counterfeit prescription pills began killing Americans. News about fake pill deaths has become commonplace and advocates have made progress to protect lives, but many people still don't know about this threat or the pill presses that ...

What if your tirzepatide shipment came from a Brazilian beauty clinic? Or a vial of semaglutide was manufactured, supposedly, at a Costco in Toronto? In April and May 2025, dozens of shipments of semaglutide, tirzepatide, apixaban, and antibiotics entered the U.S. from facilities that aren't in the FDA's drug manufacturing ...

Policy people became generally aware of pill presses with the rise of the opioid crisis: selling illegal fentanyl in powder form to people was one thing, but making counterfeit oxycodone pills with a pill press was much deadlier. Illegal pill presses and molds continue to create the fake pills that ...

Prescription Drug Freight Fraud Report, May 2025 What if your diabetes medication was manufactured at a gas station? Or your blood thinners  were mislabeled and shipped in from an unverified address in Colombia? In March 2025, dozens of pharmaceutical shipments entered the U.S. that were manufactured in places no one ...

Compounded versions of GLP-1 injectable treatments for diabetes and obesity have surged in popularity despite a lack the safety and efficacy assurances. The FDA has warned that these knockoff versions sometimes contain illicit semaglutide or tirzepatide-the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in weight loss drugs. Working with George Karavetsos, former director ...

Prescription Drug Affordability Boards by the numbers March 2025 States across the country are experimenting with Prescription Drug Affordability Boards (PDABs) to address the price of medicine. Each state has a different approach. Several exist to negotiate supplemental Medicaid rebates; others make recommendations to limit costs. A third group of ...

Handout: What is an Alternative Funding Program? 65% of U.S. workers get healthcare coverage through insurance self-funded by their employers, and employers are continually trying to keep those insurance costs in budget. Recently, many employers are controlling those costs by forcing their employees to use illegal, foreign pharmacies to obtain ...

New report reveals illegal ingredients for knockoff weight loss drugs flooding into U.S. from foreign sources, endangering patient safety The Partnership for Safe Medicines and an FDA law enforcement expert conducted the first-of-its-kind analysis. FDA regulators must enforce restrictions on unsafe drug imports to protect Americans. WASHINGTON, D.C. (Feb. 20, ...