Background
This Ruling forms part of a wider piece of work on weight loss prescription-only medicines (POMs). The ads were identified for investigation following intelligence gathering by our Active Ad Monitoring system, which uses AI to proactively search for online ads that might break the rules.
Ad description
A paid-for Google search ad for pharmacyonline.co.uk, seen on 19 December 2024, featured text stating "Obesity Treatment Jab" and an image of a hand holding a package that had an image of a vial of liquid on the front.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the ad breached the Code because it promoted POMs to the public.
Response
Express Healthcare Ltd t/a pharmacyonline.co.uk did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by Express Healthcare Ltd’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that POMs or prescription-only medical treatments must not be advertised to the public.
The ad referred to “Obesity Treatment Jab”. The ASA considered that consumers were likely to understand that to mean a weight-loss treatment that was administered by injection. We understood that all injectable forms of weight-loss medication were POMs. We therefore considered that the claim “Obesity Treatment Jab” promoted a POM to the public.
We also considered that the image of a vial of liquid on the packaging shown in the ad, although unbranded, was likely to be understood by consumers to mean, in the context of an ad for weight-loss treatment, an injectable form of weight-loss medication. We therefore considered that the image of a vial of liquid also promoted POMs to the public.
We sought advice from the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). They expressed concern that as weight-loss injections were legally classified as Prescription-Only Medicines, the use of terms such as “obesity treatment jab” was likely to lead to a consumer requesting a POM.
For those reasons, we considered the ad promoted a POM to the public and concluded that it breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 12.12 (Medicines, medical devices, health-related products and beauty products).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Express Healthcare Ltd t/a pharmacyonline.co.uk not to promote POMs to the public in future. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team.
