Watchdog bans THREE pharmacies' from advertising after they promoted prescription weight-loss pill Wegovy
A Voy The weight is over advertisement on a London bus, banned by the ASA after regulators ruled its small-print glucomannan references failed to disguise it was promoting oral Wegovy tablets.Promotional products from Voy, Juniper and MedExpress; the ASA's investigations manager warned that a medicine does not need to be named for an ad to be promoting a prescription-only drug.
The medicines regulator, the MHRA, branded Voy's bus poster 'disingenuous', saying it was designed to frustrate the rules, with small print about a glucomannan food supplement barely legible. Voy's Sky advert went further, opening to the '2001: A Space Odyssey' fanfare and a glowing planet's edge before a white pill and the words 'Oral weight support'.
MedExpress teased 'New weight loss tablets', 'No needles' and 'Coming soon' on Instagram before steering customers to Wegovy.
Over 92% of Juniper members saw results in the first month, its YouTube ad claimed, before pushing Wegovy.
Viewers following Voy's Sky ad URL found Mounjaro and Wegovy injection pens beside white tablets stamped 'novo'.
