General Pharmaceutical Council
The number of complaints received by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) that relate to weight-loss drugs has increased to more than 150 per month, the regulator has said.
Speaking at The Pharmacy Show, held in Birmingham on 12–13 October 2025, Glenn Mathieson, lead advisor for professional regulation at the GPhC, said the most recent data showed that the regulator received 152 fitness to practise (FtP) complaints relating to weight loss injections in August 2025.
The GPhC received just 12 FtP complaints about weight loss drugs as recently as April 2024 and 250 FtP concerns in total during May 2020, he said.
In its annual report published on 2 October 2025, the GPhC said there had been a “notable increase in concerns received from members of the public about the prescribing and oversight of weight-management medicines”.
The majority of the concerns around weight-loss medication relate to inappropriate prescribing, lack of verification, advertising of prescription-only medicines, as well as general customer service — for instance, people paying for medications and then not receiving them on time, which could be related to supply issues, Mathieson said.
Also speaking at the panel, Taylor Meanwell, compliance executive at the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), which works as part of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), said the CAP was taking action against advertising of weight-loss medication on social media.
The CAP had developed monitoring tools to scrape and scan adverts on social media apps and sites for the advertising of prescription-only medication, while also closely monitoring advertising from 30–40 pharmacies, he said.
Meanwell also confirmed that working with influencers to advertise prescription-only medication was a breach of the code, which covers both direct and affiliate advertising.
The ASA was currently investigating four issues relating to affiliate advertising, he added.
When asked about online sellers claiming to supply retatrutide (Eli Lilly) — a weight-loss medication currently still in clinical trials — Meanwell said the issue was “being looked at”.
In addition, Mathieson told delegates at The Pharmacy Show that the GPhC was currently investigating a superintendent pharmacist in FtP proceedings over concerns about advertising prescription-only medications to the general public.
Also speaking at the session, Roz Gittins, chief pharmacy officer at the GPhC, acknowledged frustration over companies still breaking the advertising code.
Legal processes “take time”, often “longer than we would like” but “things are getting quicker”, she added.
