Wegovy: GPhC cracks down on POM discount codes after C+D exposé
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The pharmacy regulator has clarified that discount codes for prescription-only medications (POM), which are currently offered by industry giants, break regulatory rules.
“Discount codes for POMs” – which are currently offered directly or indirectly by pharmacies including ASDA Online Doctor, Superdrug Online Doctor and Pharmacy2U – “should not” be created or used by pharmacies, C+D has learned.
The comments come after a C+D investigation found over a dozen pharmacies offering patients discount codes for POM weight loss drugs, including Wegovy and Mounjaro.
The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) last week (July 25) told C+D that offering discount codes “is a form of promotion of POMs” and that pharmacies “should not create or use” them.
Read more: Opinion: Influencers offering discounts on weight-loss jabs must stop
“This includes the creation of codes for use by the pharmacy itself (e.g. on its own website) or for other advertising, for example by social media influencers,” it said.
“We expect pharmacies and pharmacy owners to follow Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) guidance on the promotion of POMs at all times,” it added.
The medicines regulator told C+D last week (July 23) that POMS “cannot be advertised to the general public, as set out in the Human Medicines Regulations 2012”.
It added that it “takes concerns about the illegal promotion of prescription weight-loss medicines to the public very seriously”.
Read more: 'Severe violations' of advertising codes over weight loss jabs
But despite the GPhC’s clear condemnation of discount codes for POMs, its action on the issue appears scant.
C+D found that one online pharmacy inspected by the GPhC last year was using "promotional offers and discounts...relating to POMs", according to its inspector.
While the pharmacy did not meet all of the regulator’s standards, the GPhC’s follow up “improvement action plan” did not include any requirement to stop using the codes.
Discount code crack down?
A C+D investigation over the last month found that various pharmacies including industry giants Superdrug Online Doctor, Asda Online Doctor and Pharmacy2U – the largest online pharmacy in the UK – had all offered discount codes for services that include POMs to patients.
C+D approached all three companies for comment.
They stressed that they do not provide discount codes for POMs directly, but use them to promote their weight loss services, which include the provision of POMs such as Wegovy.
Read more: Wegovy: 'I really hope the NHS crack down on this. I am forever traumatised by what happened'
An Asda spokesperson today (July 29) said that “discount codes are never provided against any specific POM as we recognise guidance from the GPhC and the MHRA”.
“Any discount code that can be used with our services is for redemption against our service provision as a whole, which includes consultation by a GMC registered doctor and diet and lifestyle advice and support,” they added.
Superdrug told C+D today that “Superdrug Online Doctor advertising is in full compliance with the MHRA’s specific weight loss service guidelines”.
It added that the guidelines “allow for advertising of weight loss services, provided no reference is made to any POM that might be provided as part of the treatment”.
“The ten percent discount is off the provision of the service and not the medication,” it said.
“That's wrong, that's incentivising”
Last week (July 26), one anonymous contractor told C+D that the GPhC’s latest statement “is a step in the right direction to stop these unethical pharmacies”.
But they stressed that they would “like to see the GPhC take action against them to really stamp this out”.
“Otherwise, I worry that nobody seems to want to sanction online pharmacies for these practices,” they told C+D.
Read more: MHRA approves weight loss jab Wegovy to ‘prevent’ heart problems in UK ‘first’
Meanwhile, the contractor also said that a GPhC inspector told them that they “could not have” discount codes on their pharmacy’s site.
They added that the inspector “explicitly” said codes were “not allowed” and that “that's wrong, that's incentivising”.
Read more: Wegovy: Online weight loss drugs need 'urgent regulation', doctor leaders warn
But the contractor said that they were feeling the impact of other pharmacies who had gotten away with offering discount codes.
“Increasingly, every day, we're getting 10-20 customers saying ‘we get discount codes from [other pharmacies] can you price match us?’”, they said.
“And obviously we have to, just to make sure the customer stays with us,” they told C+D.
Wegovy regulation fears
The news comes after C+D exclusively revealed last month that a “young girl” had to be treated in A&E after presenting with life threatening symptoms after taking weight loss drug Wegovy obtained through Boots Online Doctor.
At the time, the body representing acute doctors raised the alarm with the medicines watchdog about the regulation of “life threatening” weight loss drugs obtained online.
Read more: Wegovy online prescription warning - pharmacists threatened by GPhC action
And now-health secretary Wes Streeting said that a Labour government would look “very carefully” at changing weight loss drug regulation.
“I think we are going to need much closer clinical oversight and regulation,” he said at the time.
Meanwhile last month, new research by academics at the University of Bath and Lund University in Sweden found that weight loss drugs are consistently being advertised irresponsibly with “serious consequences” for patient health.
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