The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and West Midlands Police seized around £2 million of counterfeit weight loss medicines in a raid on an industrial unit in Birmingham on 14 October 2026. Officers recovered more than 12,000 fake retatrutide and tirzepatide pens, along with packaging for roughly 30,000 further products, according to the MHRA statement published on GOV.UK on 15 October. Tim Duffield, Head Intelligence at the MHRA's Criminal Enforcement Unit, said the seized products "have not been assessed for safety, quality or effectiveness" and that their contents, including any contamination, are unknown. He added that retatrutide "has not been authorised for use in the UK", and that anything sold as retatrutide outside a legitimate clinical trial is being supplied illegally. Pharmacy Business reported this as the third MHRA raid on fake weight loss medicines in 2026. No arrests were announced in connection with the Birmingham unit.
Why retatrutide has no UK licence
A medicine can only be sold in the UK once the MHRA has assessed its safety, quality and efficacy and granted a marketing authorisation. Retatrutide is still an investigational drug, so there is no legal route to it outside a registered clinical trial. Tirzepatide is licensed in the UK. Both drugs were found in counterfeit form at the Birmingham unit. The MHRA regulates medicines across the whole UK, so this enforcement applies equally in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, unlike the nutrition and health claim rules for food supplements, where GB and Northern Ireland now follow separate registers. The same GOV.UK statement notes an earlier MHRA operation in May 2026 that led to two arrests.
What this means in practice
The enforcement here concerns prescription-only medicines rather than food supplements, and the two sit under separate regimes. The MHRA's own advice is that anyone considering GLP-1 treatment should speak to a healthcare professional and should obtain medicines only from a registered pharmacy against a valid prescription. The raid raises a duller question for any online health purchase. Who is the seller, and where did the stock come from? Perqen's FAQs page sets out how its catalogue is sourced through an authorised EU distributor.
How Perqen members save
This is an enforcement story about unlicensed medicines, not about anything Perqen stocks, so there is no product link here. Membership costs £4.99 a month or £29.99 a year and unlocks member pricing across the full Perqen catalogue of established supplement brands.
This article reports published news and research and is for information only. Food supplements are not a substitute for a varied diet or medical care, and no product mentioned is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Speak to your GP or pharmacist before changing what you take, especially if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or taking prescribed medicines.