Eli Lilly escalates its fight against black market weight-loss superdrug

Key active ingredients of Lilly's products are produced in the company's huge facilities in Kinsale (pictured) and Limerick.

Eli Lilly is stepping up its fight against a booming black market for retatrutide, an experimental drug that the company is counting on to expand its crucial weight-loss franchise.

For almost two years, Lilly has been warning consumers not to take knock-off versions of the shot that are being sold online and at wellness clinics and medical spas. It hasn’t been approved by regulators anywhere in the world.

Key active ingredients of Lilly's products are produced in the company's huge facilities in Kinsale and Limerick. Now, Lilly is upping the pressure. 

The drugmaker filed a handful of lawsuits against US businesses, many in Texas, that sell retatrutide products illegally. It’s also asking regulators to do more to rein in the illicit market. 

The lawsuits cite customer complaints and social media advertisements. One business, Lilly said, offered a calculator to help people figure out what dosage of retatrutide they should be taking. That’s typically done by a licensed doctor.

Businesses that enable and facilitate the sales — including credit card companies, shipping firms and social media sites — also have a role to play in protecting consumers, Lilly said, calling it an “urgent public health crisis.” 

Max Denning, an associate vice president at Lilly who oversees global patient safety for its cardiometabolic health division, said tracking knock-off retatrutide is like a game of “whack-a-mole”. The drugs are frequently made by unregulated foreign manufacturers, according to Lilly.

“It’s a huge problem, a global problem,” Denning said in an interview. “It’s not something we can tackle alone.” 

The US Food and Drug Administration has said it’s illegal for pharmacies to compound retatrutide. Since 2024, the FDA has sent warning letters to at least 16 companies claiming to sell it. 

Behind the scenes, Lilly has been working for years to disrupt the global retatrutide trade. The company has referred more than 200 entities to the FDA, the US Department of Justice, state attorneys general, law enforcement and professional licensing boards. 

Lilly says it has reported more than 14,000 websites, advertisements, social media posts and product listings in over 100 countries, but some companies continue to amplify misleading content to vulnerable consumers.

Lilly and rival Novo Nordisk have been fighting a similar battle against copycat versions of their bestselling weight-loss drugs Zepbound and Wegovy. 

Retatrutide

But retatrutide has taken that fight to a new level.

The hype about retatrutide has been building for years, ever since Lilly revealed results from a mid-stage study that suggested the drug might be more powerful than any weight-loss drug currently on the market. 

Since then, people all over the world have been clamouring to get their hands on black-market versions, buying them from overseas sellers who market them as “research-use only” to avoid scrutiny. 

On social media, the drug is called “reta” or “r3ta,” sometimes even “ratatouille,” as people increasingly find workarounds to avoid some of the restrictions that companies like TikTok have put in place on content related to weight loss.

If approved by regulators, retatrutide is expected to generate more than $5.4bn (€4.7bn) in annual sales for Lilly by 2030. But the black market could pose a major risk. 

Any safety concerns that emerge with knock-off versions could threaten the drug’s reputation, even though Lilly has been running its own large-scale clinical trial program on the medication. The company plans to seek approval from the FDA early next year.