{"id":105278,"date":"2025-08-29T22:15:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T22:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/105278\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T22:15:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T22:15:10","slug":"rush-to-get-mounjaro-before-price-rises-overwhelms-pharmacies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/105278\/","title":{"rendered":"Rush to get Mounjaro before price rises overwhelms pharmacies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pharmacists have been \u201cinundated\u201d with years\u2019 worth of prescription requests for the weight-loss drug Mounjaro as regular users become increasingly desperate to secure it before the price increases.<\/p>\n

Dr Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of the Independent Pharmacies Association, which represents thousands of high-street sites in England and Wales, said many pharmacists had been \u201cthrown into chaos\u201d and were dealing with \u201can impossible amount of prescription requests\u201d after the company Eli Lilly said it would be increasing the price of the jab.<\/p>\n

\u201cPharmacists have become inundated,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are repeatedly asking to get supply to take them through several months. I have had pharmacists reporting that they\u2019ve seen prescriptions worth six months or more, but there\u2019s obviously not enough stock. We are very worried patients will look to black-market sites. We already know this is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

One woman who works in a pharmacy claimed she had ordered \u00a37,000 of Mounjaro in the past few days and had already sold it. <\/p>\n

Eli Lilly, the American manufacturer of the drug, said that the price of Mounjaro charged to pharmacies would change after a demand from President Trump<\/a> that pharmaceutical companies stop allowing other countries to \u201cfreeload\u201d. The rate for a 5mg dose, the third-largest, will nearly double from \u00a392 to \u00a3180 from September 1 while the maximum dose, 15mg, will increase from \u00a3122 to \u00a3330.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday the company told its two British wholesalers to temporarily stop taking orders<\/a> after demand soared.<\/p>\n

City of London police said they had confiscated more than \u00a332,000 worth of weight-loss drugs believed to have been illegally sold in the UK after a woman was found to have been advertising counterfeit goods online at significantly reduced prices.<\/p>\n

\"Eli<\/p>\n

Eli Lilly\u2019s factory in Co Cork<\/p>\n

NIALL CARSON\/PA<\/p>\n

It was later discovered that an organised crime group had been involved in the sale and distribution of the medicines without a prescription or licence from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.<\/p>\n

The products had allegedly been shipped via a Lancashire-based fulfilment company that provides storage and distribution services, then sold to members of the public without any health and safety consultation.<\/p>\n

On Thursday officers seized roughly \u00a332,000 worth of what was believed to be counterfeit Mounjaro, Ozempic and Retatrutide. Further analysis showed the products contained more than four times the recommended dose.<\/p>\n

A freedom of information request also revealed that the UK Border Force seized approximately 18,300 illegal weight-loss and diabetes medications between January 2024 and June 2025.<\/p>\n

Mounjaro, a brand name for tirzepatide, is a prescription-only medicine in the UK and can only be obtained legally with a prescription from a registered healthcare professional. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Big pharma set to pull investment unless NHS spends more on drugs<\/a><\/p>\n

Jeanie Annan-Lewin, a freelance stylist and creative consultant who struggled to lose weight because of fibroids and polycystic ovary syndrome, said she would have to make \u201clifestyle changes\u201d to afford the new price tag.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe price for me will go up by \u00a3100 a month,\u201d she said. \u201cI haven\u2019t stockpiled at the moment because I don\u2019t have enough money to do that. That\u2019s \u00a3300 a month on top of rents and bills and the current cost of the living crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been the only effective thing I\u2019ve used. I\u2019ve lost up to three stone. I need to stay on it until I get to my target weight and then I can wean myself off of it. I\u2019m trying to do this properly. I\u2019m just going to have to cut something else out of my life and replace it. Because this is the only thing that\u2019s worked.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pharmacists have been \u201cinundated\u201d with years\u2019 worth of prescription requests for the weight-loss drug Mounjaro as regular users…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,137,490],"class_list":{"0":"post-105278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}