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 Google ad for SemaPen, seen on 2 October 2024, stated, “SemaPen Weight Loss […] Clinically Designed Weight Loss Pen Program […] SemaPen Makes Weight Loss Easier.”
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the ad breached the Code because it promoted POMs to the public.
Response
SemaPen Ltd said they had initiated an internal review upon being made aware of the complaint. They accepted that the ad in question had not been compliant with the requirements of ASA guidance or the CAP Code. They said they had contracted with a third-party marketing agency and had not realised that the content in question had not been compliant. They said they had shared guidelines issued by the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) with the agency at the start of their relationship and had expected that all ads would meet those requirements.
SemaPen accepted that they bore the responsibility for their marketing material’s overall compliance and said they had since stopped working with the third-party agency. They had ensured the new agency they were partnering with were aware of the legal and regulatory requirements around the advertising of POMs and had also re-shared MHRA guidance internally.
SemaPen said that they were not affiliated with non-specialist prescribers (e.g., GPs), but that they hoped in future to work with the NHS as they grew as a business. They said their website and onboarding process made clear to all patients that not everyone was suitable for prescription-only weight-loss medication, and that patients underwent a thorough medical assessment and triage prior to any prescription being issued. SemaPen said they were happy to work with the ASA on such issues and would ensure that future marketing materials would be compliant.
Assessment
The CAP Code stated that prescription-only medicines (POMs) or prescription-only medical treatments must not be advertised to the public.
The ad included multiple references to the brand name “SemaPen” and the claims “Clinically Designed Weight Loss Pen Program” and “SemaPen Makes Weight Loss Easier”.
The ASA considered that the reference to “Weight Loss Pen” was likely to be understood by consumers to mean injectable weight-loss medication. We noted that the landing page on SemaPen’s website which was linked to by the ad stated, “What’s included? Weight Loss Injections […] One of the first providers of weight loss jabs in the UK, we offer this ground breaking [sic] injectable treatment”, next to which was a graphic of a medical injection pen. We understood that all injectable forms of weight-loss medication were POMs. We therefore considered that the reference to “Weight Loss Pen” in the ad promoted a POM to the public.
Furthermore, “SemaPen” the brand name of the product, which was referenced in the ad, was made up of a combination of the terms “Sema” and “Pen”. We considered that, in the context of an ad for a weight-loss treatment, consumers would be likely to understand the reference to “Sema” to be an abbreviated version of “semaglutide”, which was a weight-loss POM. We therefore considered that the references to “Sema” and “SemaPen” promoted a POM to the public.
We sought advice from the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). They expressed concern that as weight-loss injections (“Weight Loss Pen”) were legally classified as a POM, the use of that term was likely to lead to a consumer requesting a POM.
While we welcomed SemaPen’s assurances that future ads would be compliant with the requirements of the Code, for the above reasons we considered that the ad had 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 SemaPen Ltd not to promote POMs to the public in future.
