The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has raided two sites in the Midlands as the agency looks to curb the production and selling of illegal weight loss medication.
Working alongside local police forces, officers from the MHRA’s Criminal Enforcement Unit (CEU) searched two premises in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. The raids are part of an ongoing investigation by the agency’s in-house law enforcement department into an “organised criminal network” making and selling unlicensed obesity drugs.
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Almost 2,000 doses of unauthorised weight loss medicines ready to be shipped to customers were seized, alongside manufacturing equipment, suspected pharmaceutical ingredients, packaging, and commercial vehicles. In a separate statement, Lincolnshire Police said a large agricultural building, which had been converted into an illicit manufacturing facility, had been searched. The address in Nottingham was a residential property.
Lincolnshire Police said investigators believed that the organised crime group were selling unlicensed weight loss-substances online, with marketing ploys including the use of social media platforms such as TikTok.
The raid follows one carried out in October 2025, when the MHRA shut down an illegal facility in Northampton, also in the Midlands. The CEU team seized the same amount of illegal weight loss drugs as the raids in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
The illegal weight loss market has emerged amid surging demand for drugs, which has created a lucrative opportunity for those selling unregulated products. According to Pharmaceutical Technology’s parent company GlobalData, the obesity drug market across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK is predicted to be worth $20.6bn in 2031.
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By GlobalDataThe most popular approved brands in the UK are Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro (tirzepatide) and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy (semaglutide). Globally, the two drugs generated $23bn and $12.5bn, respectively, in 2025. According to the MHRA, doses seized in the latest raids uncovered tirzepatide and retatrutide. The latter is Lilly’s experimental triple hormone receptor agonist known as triple G, which is currently in clinical trials.
As per data from the MHRA, nearly half of UK adults between 18 and 30 years of age have bought a medicine or medical product online. The agency says there is a “serious risk” that products could be acquired from an illegal website. Fake medication lacks both efficacy and safety standards.
Dr Zubir Ahmed, minister for health innovation and patient safety, said: “This week’s raids have taken dangerous, unregulated products off our streets. These medicines are made with no regard for safety and pose serious risks. We will not allow criminals to profit by exploiting people looking for help with their weight.”
Circulation of unregulated weight loss jabs is not just restricted to the UK. In June 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued an alert after fake semaglutide was found in Brazil, as well as in the UK. At the time, the health agency said it had seen increasing reports of falsified semaglutide products across the world since 2022.
