Background
This ruling forms part of a wider piece of work on prescription-only medicines (POMs) used for weight loss, identified for investigation following complaints and intelligence gathered by the ASA.
See also related rulings published between 9 July 2025 and 4 November 2026.
Ad description
A pre-roll ad on YouTube, seen in July 2026, featured an image of unbranded white pills floating in the sky. On-screen text stated “The weight loss pill is here”. Smaller text in the caption stated “Over 92% of Members See Results in the First Month. Check Today If You Qualify. No GP Referral Needed. Get Private Online Care With Discreet Home Delivery Across The UK.”
Issue
Three complainants challenged whether the ad breached the Code, because it promoted a POM to the public.
Response
Juniper Technologies UK Ltd t/a Juniper said they had reviewed their marketing following ASA guidance which they had become aware of in June of 2026, and had removed the ad from circulation in July. Their understanding had been that broad references to oral, unidentified medications were not necessarily references to POMs, and they had therefore excluded phrasing such as “GLP-1” from their ads. After consulting the most recent ASA guidance, they understood that wider concerns existed around language relating to "new" weight-loss pills, and the risk that they could be interpreted as references to POMs. After an internal review, they said they had instructed their marketing team to avoid making references to “new” tablets or pills in ads.
Juniper believed that the ad did not create the impression that that seeing a doctor or pharmacist was unnecessary, and pointed out that patients seeking digital medicated weight management services did not need a GP referral. They said that such patients could directly access an eligibility assessment through a provider after being assessed by a licensed clinician, who could be a doctor or a pharmacist independent prescriber.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that POMs or prescription-only medical treatments must not be advertised to the public.
The ASA understood that the Wegovy (semaglutide) tablet was the first oral GLP-1 tablet to be approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and was licensed as a POM on 11 June 2026. Private availability followed in July 2026.
In assessing the likely consumer understanding of the ad, the ASA had regard to its consumer research “How people interpret ads relating to prescription-only weight-loss medicines”, published in April 2026. We acknowledged that the research was conducted before oral prescription-only weight-loss medicines were licensed in the UK and therefore did not specifically examine consumers’ understanding of those products. Nevertheless, the research provided useful evidence of how consumers interpreted references, imagery and other features in advertising for weight-loss medicines, while recognising that each ad must be assessed on its own overall presentation.
The research found that some features, including efficacy claims relating to significant/rapid weight loss, were particularly strong indicators that a prescription-only weight-loss medicine was being advertised. Overall, the research demonstrated that consumers often inferred meaning from the combination of an ad's imagery, language, claims and overall presentation. Even where a medicine was not explicitly named, those combined signals could lead consumers to understand that a weight-loss POM was being promoted.
In light of that research, we considered that many consumers would have interpreted the references in the ad such as “The weight loss pill is here”, “Over 92% of Members See Results in the First Month”, “Check Today If You Qualify” and “No GP Referral Needed”, combined with the prominent images of white pills, to mean that a prescription-only weight-loss medicine was being promoted. We further noted that the ad had been seen in July 2026, at a time when the Wegovy oral tablet had recently been approved in the UK. This had received significant press coverage, as private availability was being rolled out, which we considered added to the impression that the ad promoted a prescription-only weight-loss medicine. Taking the above factors into account, we considered the wording and image used in the ad promoted POMs to the public and it therefore breached the Code.
We sought advice from the MHRA, who noted that an objective assessment of an ad is required to determine whether it can be regarded as designed to promote a medicinal product or products. Such an assessment required consideration of a number of factors which may include the wording used in the ad and whether the material is designed to persuade, the likely effect on an average well-informed consumer, and the method by which it is distributed.
We also considered the consumer journey after clicking the “Learn more” link in the ad. Upon clicking on the link, consumers were directed first to a filtering page asking whether they were new to, or were already using, weight-loss medication. Regardless of which option was selected, the consumer was then taken to the same page which featured text that stated “Wegovy Pill […] The first oral semaglutide for weight loss”. We understood that Wegovy (semaglutide) was classed as a POM.
The MHRA also expressed concern that the advertisement was likely to lead to the use of a POM in circumstances where the consumer had been invited to follow a discrete path which guided them, even if the promotional message was spread across a number of pages, to those weight-loss medicines.
Because the ad directed consumers to a website landing page, via a filtering page, that featured a named POM, we further concluded that the ad advertised a POM to the public, and 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 investigated. We told Juniper Technologies UK Ltd t/a Juniper not to promote POMs to the public in future.
