Background
This ruling forms part of a wider piece of work on prescription-only medicines (POMs) used for weight loss, identified for investigation following intelligence gathered by the ASA. See also related rulings published between 9 July 2025 and 2 September 2026.
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
Two paid-for social media ads for Simple Online Pharmacy:
a. A paid-for Instagram ad, seen on 1 June 2026, featured the text “NO NEEDLE. COMING SOON.”. Further text underneath read “Join the waitlist”. A small pop-up panel included the text “Early access now open” and a button labelled “Learn more”. Text at the bottom of the ad read “A new oral weight management…”.
b. A paid-for Meta ad, seen on 25 June 2026, featured an image of a newspaper with the headline “ORAL WEIGHT MANAGEMENT APPROVED IN THE UK”. Smaller text underneath read “16% WEIGHT LOSS”, “NO MORE NEEDLES”, “NO FRIDGE” AND “EASY DAILY USE”.
The accompanying text post stated “Now approved in the UK. A new oral weight management option is available to pre-order through Simple Online Pharmacy. Use code SIMPLEPILL30 for £30 off your first order and secure your place before launch demand increases”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether:
1. ad (a) made medicinal claims for, and promoted, an unlicensed product; and
2. ad (b) breached the Code because it promoted POMs to the public.
Response
1. & 2. Simple Online Healthcare Ltd t/a Simple Online Pharmacy said that ad (a) had only appeared for a short time period and had now been removed. They had checked for materially similar live and scheduled ads and paused or removed any content that could give rise to the same concern. They said the ad was not intended to promote or encourage consumers to request any specific product, did not contain any named product, and highlighted that no consumer was guaranteed any particular POM or treatment outcome. They said that consumers underwent an assessment of their clinical condition and circumstances, rather than an assessment for a particular medication, and that at the end of that process they were shown a range of potential treatment options rather than a single specific treatment. A medicine was only prescribed following a clinical assessment and was not supplied where it was not appropriate. They stated that references to pre-orders or waitlists were not a guarantee that a consumer would be supplied with a specific medicine.
Simple Online Pharmacy confirmed that ad (b) and the associated landing page had also been removed, and said the ad was intended to promote their online clinical service rather than any specific POM. They did not therefore believe that ad (b) was likely to lead to use of a POM.
Following a review of their advertising, Simple Online Pharmacy stated they had implemented a number of measures to ensure that their advertising did not directly or indirectly promote an unlicensed medicine or a POM in the future. They had reviewed live and scheduled ads across Meta, paid search, website landing pages, homepage banners, and other public-facing channels, and had introduced controls to prevent public-facing ads from directly or indirectly referring to named POMs, or product imagery or wording that could encourage consumers to request a specific medicine. They said that landing pages for ads would be led by references to their services and consultations, and make clear that prescribing was not guaranteed. Further measures included a two-stage approval process for advertising related to weight management, updating their compliance checklists, delivering refresher training to their marketing team and introducing enhanced monitoring of their weight-management advertising.
They provided correspondence to demonstrate that they had taken remedial actions after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) brought a similar issue concerning their website homepage to their attention.
Assessment
The ASA understood that the Wegovy (semaglutide) tablet was the first oral GLP-1 tablet for weight management to be approved by the MHRA and was licensed as a POM on 11 June 2026. The Foundayo (orforglipron) GLP-1 tablet was licensed as a POM on 10 August 2026. Prior to those dates, no UK Marketing Authorisation was in place. After those dates, the Wegovy tablet and Foundayo tablet were classified as POMs.
1. Upheld
The CAP Code stated that medicinal claims may be made for a medicinal product that was authorised by the MHRA or under the auspices of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). A medicinal claim was a claim that a product or its constituent(s) could be used with a view to make a medical diagnosis or could treat or prevent disease, including an injury, ailment or adverse condition, whether of body or mind, in human beings. Medicines must have an authorisation from the MHRA or under the auspices of the EMA before they were marketed.
Ad (a) included the text “NO NEEDLE. COMING SOON” and referenced “A new oral weight management…”. We considered consumers were likely to understand “NO NEEDLE”, in the context of an ad offering weight management treatments, to be a reference to existing weight-loss injections, all of which were POMs, and that the ad was referring to an oral version of those treatments. We further considered that, by suggesting the new product was similar to pre-existing weight loss injections but removed the need for consumers to inject themselves, the ad implied that the advertised product would have similar effects to those weight-loss injections and could help consumers lose weight. We therefore considered that the ad had the effect of making medicinal claims that required the product to be authorised as a medicine.
The landing page for ad (a) was titled “ORAL GLP-1 TREATMENT IS COMING SOON TO THE UK” and invited consumers to join a waitlist. Text next to images of bottles labelled “Foundayo (orforglipron) tablets” and “Wegovy (semaglutide) tablets” stated “Lose up to 17% of your body weight”. Further text under the heading “GLP-1 Pills explained” described the products as “a tablet-based alternative to injections” and said they were “designed to help reduce appetite and increase feelings of fullness”. We therefore considered that the landing page for the ad promoted and made medicinal claims for the Wegovy and Foundayo tablets.
We understood that the Wegovy (semaglutide) tablet was the first oral GLP-1 tablet for weight management to be approved by the MHRA, and was licensed on 11 June. The Foundayo (orforglipron) tablet was licensed on 10 August. However, ad (a) was seen on 1 June, at a time where no oral GLP-1 tablets were authorised by the MHRA for weight management. Because of that, no medicinal claims could be made for the products.
We sought advice from the MHRA, who expressed concern that the ad promoted a medicinal product before a UK Marketing Authorisation was in place, which was not permitted.
Because ad (a) made medicinal claims for, and promoted, products which were not authorised at the time the ad was seen, we concluded that it breached the Code.
On that point, ad (a) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 12.1 and 12.11 (Medicines, medical devices, health-related products and beauty products).
2. Upheld
The CAP Code stated that POMs or prescription-only medical treatments must not be advertised to the public.
Ad (b) featured an image of a newspaper with a picture of a tablet and the headline “ORAL WEIGHT MANAGEMENT APPROVED IN THE UK” and included the text “16% WEIGHT LOSS”, “NO MORE NEEDLES” and “NO FRIDGE”. We considered that consumers would understand the references to “no more needles” and “no fridge” to be referring to pre-existing weight-loss injections that needed to be stored in the fridge prior to being opened, all of which were POMs. That, combined with the references to “a new oral weight management option”, would likely lead consumers to understand that the advertised tablet was an oral version of injectable weight-loss POMs. We therefore considered the ad promoted a POM to the public.
We also understood that Chapter Seven of the MHRA’s The Blue Guide stated that a website homepage should focus on medical conditions and the service the website provided, and not include any reference to named POMs. It said that links and navigation aids may be given for particular conditions and diseases but not be specific to POMs. The guidance said that further pages about the condition, which consumers chose to access, may contain non-promotional information on specific medicines provided that was presented in the context of a fair overview of the treatment options.
We understood that landing pages from paid-for ads on social media were akin to a homepage, for the purposes of The Blue Guide. The landing page for ad (b) was titled “Wegovy pill UK”, stated “the Wegovy pill is once-daily oral semaglutide pill for weight management, containing the same active ingredient as the Wegovy injection” and included a comparison between the Wegovy pill and Wegovy injection, both of which were POMs.
We considered that consumers who had clicked through to the landing page were actively presented with POMs, as opposed to information about particular conditions and diseases. Because the landing page for ad (b) referenced POMs, it also promoted POMs to the public.
We sought advice from the MHRA. They expressed concern that the ad was likely to lead to the use of a POM.
For those reasons, we considered ad (b) promoted POMs to the public and concluded it breached the Code.
On that point, ad (b) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 12.12 (Medicines, medical devices, health-related products and beauty products).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form investigated. We told Simple Online Healthcare Ltd t/a Simple Online Pharmacy not to make medicinal claims for, or promote, unlicensed products, or promote POMs to the public in future.
