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 2 September 2026.
Ad description
A paid-for Facebook ad for MedExpress, seen on 13 May 2026 featured an image of a woman taking a slim box labelled "MedExpress" from a pile of vegetables.
Text stated "[...] helps silence food noise. Medicated weight loss: Reduces food noise Controls your cravings Helps you feel fuller for longer".
The caption stated "Get weight loss treatment online [...]. Treatments are subject to approval by a certified healthcare professional, who assesses suitability based on an online consultation".
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the ad breached the Code because it advertised POMs to the public.
Response
MedExpress Enterprises Ltd t/a MedExpress said that the ad was intended to promote the various weight-loss products and services that they offered. They included over-the-counter (OTC) products, as well as POMs. MedExpress said the ad was intended to promote the different options for weight-loss treatments available, rather than POMs.
MedExpress said that the wording “treatments are subject to approval by a certified healthcare professional, who assesses suitability based on an online consultation” was to promote their consultation service, not POMs. They understood that promoting such services was permitted. They said they required all customers to undergo a consultation to assess eligibility for any weight-loss product, whether OTC or POM.
MedExpress accepted that, after clicking the ad, consumers were directed to an age gate that referenced named POMs, and to further pages that displayed branded images of Wegovy and Mounjaro injection pens. They accepted that this click-through journey required amendment. However, they said they had identified that error prior to being contacted by the ASA and had amended the relevant pages. They also said that those landing pages would not appear in the same format again.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that POMs must not be advertised to the public.
The ASA considered the likely consumer understanding of the ad. In doing so, we had regard to our research, “How people interpret ads relating to prescription-only weight-loss medicines”, published in April 2026. 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 claims relating to reducing cravings or regulating appetite 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, and that, even where a medicine was not explicitly named, those combined signals could lead consumers to understand that a prescription-only weight-loss medicine was being promoted.
We considered that at least a significant minority of consumers would have interpreted the references in the ad to "helps silence food noise” and “Reduces food noise Controls your cravings Helps you feel fuller for longer" to mean that a prescription-only weight-loss medicine was available.
We sought advice from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), who noted that an objective assessment of an ad was required to determine whether it could be regarded as designed to promote a medicinal product or medicinal products. Such an assessment required consideration of a number of factors which may include the wording used in the ad and whether the material was designed to persuade, the likely effect on an average well-informed consumer, and the method by which it was distributed.
We acknowledged MedExpress’ comment that, following a consultation, some consumers might have been eligible for OTC products rather than POMs. However, in addition to the likely consumer understanding of the claims “helps silence food noise” and “Reduces food noise Controls your cravings Helps you feel fuller for longer”, as set out above, we understood from the Summary of Product Characteristics, accompanying the relevant marketing authorisation, that claims relating to the suppression of appetite, hunger and cravings, and to feeling fuller for longer, were permitted only for prescription-only weight-loss medicines and not for any OTC weight-loss products.
Taking the above factors into account, we considered the wording used in the ad promoted POMs to the public and breached the Code.
We also considered the customer journey after clicking on the ad. The ad linked to a landing page on the MedExpress website via an intermediate page that required customers to confirm that they were over 18 years of age. The age-gate page included the text “Support your weight loss with licensed medications shown in clinical studies to help people lose up to 25% of their body weight when combined with healthy lifestyle changes* *Based on a 72-week study of adults with obesity using Mounjaro (tirzepatide 15mg)”. We understood that Mounjaro (tirzepatide) was classed as a POM. We considered that the age gate functioned as a means of asking the user to confirm that they were old enough to use the site’s service before continuing to the landing page.
The landing page accessed via the age gate featured images of two injection pens: one with the name and branding of Wegovy, and the other with the name and branding of Mounjaro. We understood that, like Mounjaro (tirzepatide), Wegovy (semaglutide) was classed as a POM.
We sought further advice from the MHRA. They expressed concern that the ad 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, via the age gate, to a landing page that referenced named POMs, we further concluded that the ad advertised POMs 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 MedExpress Enterprises Ltd t/a MedExpress not to promote POMs to the public in future.
