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The General Pharmaceutical Council's fitness to practise committee is handling a case involving a superintendent pharmacist who allegedly defied a previous warning concerning the promotion of prescription only weight loss medicines, the Pharmacy Show heard this morning (October 12). 

In a panel session update on the the regulation of weight management service advertising, the GPhC's Glenn Mathieson said that although breaches of the advertising code are rarely a fitness to practise matter, the regulator may pursue proceedings where a pharmacy professional repeats the behaviour after a warning from a regulator such as the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) - as in the case of the unnamed superintendent currently going through the FTP process. 

Roz Gittins, chief pharmacy officer at the regulator said there has been a huge spike in concerns being raised by the public around weight loss services, with 125 raised in the month of August - around  half the total number of complaints that would typically have been made in previous years. 

Representing the ASA, Taylor Meanwell said the advertising watchdog uses monitoring tools to scan websites, display ads and social media platforms for potential rule breaches. 

"We're scraping at scale," said Mr Meanwell, adding that the ASA is "closely monitoring about 35 to 40 pharmacies" it suspects may be involved in promoting prescription only weight loss products. 

Commenting on how certain actors try to game the system, Mr Meanwell said: "We've seen an increase in businesses - necessarily pharmacists, but businesses as a whole - where these advertisers are trying to get around that general prohibition by using descriptors or oblique references to products where in fact everybody knows that the ad [is for a POM weight loss medicine]".

This includes using words such as 'weight loss injection' or 'obesity treatment jab' in online promotions, he explained. 

An audience member who owns an online pharmacy said there are "some very big players in the market" seeking to exploit "the smallest loophole that they can find". 

Speaking in a separate panel discussion on the same day, Day Lewis executive director Sam Patel said he believes the rules should be changed to require all patient consultations for weight loss drugs to take place in a "bricks and mortar" setting. 

"I don't think the regulator's gone far enough in preventing easy access to weight loss [drugs] online," Mr Patel commented, adding: "You [should not be able to] just send a photo or a video to lie [about weight] - that's why online is growing.

"It's dangerous and it's also an unfair playing field for community pharmacy."

Related: GPhC bans standalone use of web questionnaires for weight loss drugs