Pharmacists Play Key Role in Warning Patients About Harms of Sourcing GLP-1s Online
Timothy Mackey, MAS, PhD, discusses the dangers associated with sourcing GLP-1s from illegal online pharmacies and the key role pharmacists play in warning patients.
Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1s) have skyrocketed in popularity over the last few years. The class of medications—which includes semaglutide, tirzepatide, and liraglutide—are approved to help manage type 2 diabetes. However, a rise in awareness of GLP-1s' weight-loss benefits began around late 2022 and significantly drove demand for the drugs, resulting in shortages and a proliferation of dangerous products being sold in illegal online pharmacies.1
Timothy Mackey, MAS, PhD, professor of global health at the University of California, San Diego and a member of the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies’ Academic Advisory Panel, published a study recently in JAMA Network Open with his colleagues that sought to determine the risk of sourcing semaglutide from online platforms.2
Mackey and his colleagues conducted a search on Google and Bing to find websites advertising the sale of semaglutide without a prescription in July 2023. They chose 6 websites to purchase products from and performed visual and quality inspections to determine sterility, falsification risks, and microbiological contamination. Of the 6 websites that were chosen for the test buys, 3 delivered the product and 3 were nondelivery scams that requested additional payment.
The study found that compared to genuine semaglutide samples, which scored 22 points on the International Pharmaceutical Federation’s checklist, the purchased test products’ scores ranged from 8 to 9. These products had discrepancies in regulatory registration information and had evidence that they were likely unregistered or unlicensed. The semaglutide content in the test products also had significantly more than what was advertised on the labels, with some samples exceeding by 29% to 39%.
In an interview with Drug Topics, Mackey discussed how the study was conducted and its key findings, why people are seeking GLP-1s online, the dangers associated with sourcing them from online pharmacies, what can be done to increase awareness about illegal online pharmacies, and the key role pharmacists play in warning patients about the dangers of sourcing GLP-1s from online platforms.
“Clinicians and pharmacists are interfacing with the patient directly and have an opportunity to talk about not just the health and risk benefits associated with GLP-1s, but the sourcing risks,” Mackey said. “Right now, so many people are looking for [GLP-1s] and there is a lot of sourcing risk…Pharmacists and clinicians may be the only really informed intermediaries to really make sure that this stuff is appropriately prescribed.”
