Background
This Ruling forms part of a wider piece of work on prescription-only medicines (POMs) used for weight loss. 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 Meta ad for HealthExpress.co.uk, seen on 2 October 2024, stated, “Access Clinically Proven Weight Loss Treatments After Completing a Quick Online Consultation.” The ad included an image of a partially visible “he” branded injection pen. Text in the image stated, “UNLOCK THE POWER OF ONCE-A-WEEK CLINICALLY BACKED WEIGHTLOSS TREATMENT 10% OFF CODE: NEWAP10”. Text underneath the image stated, “10% Off with Code NEWAP10 Treatments starts from £139.50 per pen” with a button labelled “Lean More”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the ad breached the Code because it promoted POMs to the public.
Response
Hexpress Healthcare Ltd t/a HealthExpress.co.uk said they removed the ad in late October, prior to the launch of the ASA’s investigation.
They said they provided a consultation model, and their team of doctors, who were all General Medical Council (GMC) registered, administered prescriptions, and they did not use pharmacist prescribers. They said patients required a consultation with one of their doctors before medicine was prescribed or dispensed. They said they only aimed to promote their clinical consultation service rather than any medicinal products.
They explained that they occasionally offered website wide discounts, which were applied to their doctors’ consultation services rather than any medication. They said the promotion in the ad was not designed to highlight or promote any particular POMs.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that POMs (prescription-only medicines) or prescription-only medical treatments must not be advertised to the public.
The ad contained a partial image of a medical injection pen, branded with the “he” (HealthExpress.co.uk) logo. The ASA considered that although the image featured only part of the pen and logo, the image would still have been understood by consumers to reference a weight-loss injection pen. We also considered the text “Treatments starts from £139.50 per pen” would have further led consumers to understand that the image referred to a medical injection pen, used for weight-loss. We understood that all injectable forms of weight-loss medication were POMs.
We sought advice from the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). They expressed concern that as weight-loss injections (described as “pen” in relation to the weight-loss treatment) were legally classified as a POM, the use of those terms was likely to lead to a consumer requesting a POM.
Therefore, we considered the partial image of the injection pen in that context promoted a POM to the public.
We also considered the claim “ONCE-A-WEEK CLINICALLY BACKED WEIGHT LOSS TREATMENT” was likely to be understood by consumers to mean injectable weight-loss POMs, such as Wegovy (semaglutide), which were typically injected weekly, as opposed to other medical weight-loss treatments, such as the non-POM Orlistat, which was typically taken orally in tablet form, three times a day. The ad linked to a landing page on the HealthExpress website that featured in a prominent position at the top of the page, images of Wegovy (semagultide) packaging, that prominently stated, “once weekly” on the boxes. The landing page did not feature any non-POM options and whilst there was a reference to a consultation further down the page, there was no indication that any treatment other than Wegovy would be the outcome of a consultation. Therefore, we also considered the reference to “ONCE-A-WEEK […] weight loss treatment” in the ad, promoted a POM to the public.
We also considered Chapter seven of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) The Blue Guide, which stated that information provided about POMs had to be factual and non-promotional. The ad contained a 10% discount with the discount code “NEWAP10”, but did not mention specific products. The landing page of the website, linked to from the ad, also stated, “10% Off with the code ‘NEWAP10’ Only applicable on starting dosage” next to the images of Wegovy (semaglutide) packaging. We considered that consumers would understand that the discount stated in the ad applied directly to Wegovy (semaglutide). We therefore considered the discount code and price in the ad to be a promotional price for a POM and that aspect of the ad also promoted POMs to the public.
The MHRA also expressed concern that the proactive provision of a direct link to a webpage or landing page that did not require any searching from the consumer to access that information could have been analogous to that of a website homepage. MHRA guidance for treatment service providers outlined that homepages should focus on medical conditions and the service provided, and should not include any reference to named POMs.
For those reasons, we considered that the ad advertised POMs 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 Hexpress Healthcare Ltd t/a HealthExpress.co.uk not to promote POMs to the public in future.
