An experimental drug called retatrutide is set to become the most effective weight loss medication seen yet. Unfortunately, some people seem to be suffering severe, even fatal, complications from taking copycat versions of the still unapproved drug.
The Food and Drug Administration has received at least two reports of deaths linked to illicit retatrutide this year, according to documents first revealed by CBS News this week. Though it’s not certain whether counterfeit retatrutide is responsible for these deaths, these are only the latest reports suggesting that such products can be dangerous.
“It is concerning because of the breakdown of our drug-approval process in the United States of America,” Pieter Cohen, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, told CBS News Monday.
Bootleg retatrutide
Retatrutide is being developed by the company Eli Lilly. It’s the latest iteration of obesity and diabetes medications that leverage certain kinds of hunger-related hormones like GLP-1. Retatrutide in particular mimics GLP-1, GIP, and the hormone glucagon.
Large-scale clinical trials so far have demonstrated that retatrutide may have the greatest potency of any obesity drug developed yet, with weight loss rates reaching as high as 30%—a level on par with gold standard bariatric surgeries. Given these results, the FDA and other regulatory agencies are almost certain to grant Eli Lilly an approval for retatrutide as early as this year.
The approval of earlier GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) was quickly followed by the emergence of a gray and black market for these drugs. It’s a market that has been fueled by the high list prices and limited insurance coverage of GLP-1s, among other factors. People have often been able to buy compounded and/or counterfeit versions of these drugs for much cheaper than the genuine article, though costs of the genuine stuff have significantly lowered over time.
This underground market has now extended to retatrutide as well. Though the drug isn’t approved anywhere, some companies are already distributing and selling it and other unregulated peptides, often produced in China, to people all around the world. And both deaths reported to the FDA this year seem to be tied to black market retatrutide.
The deaths were reported to the FDA via its Adverse Event Reporting System, which is primarily meant to monitor the safety of approved drugs once released to the public. CBS News obtained the reports via a Freedom of Information Act request.
The first death was documented by a healthcare professional in July. It involved a 41-year-old woman with obesity who went into cardiac arrest after taking retatrutide from an “unreliable source.” The second was reported last month, involving a 49-year-old patient who died after experiencing severe dehydration, malnutrition, and a cardiac arrest. The patient reportedly obtained retatrutide from an online peptide vendor on the advice of a licensed nurse.
The dangers of black market GLP-1s
It’s important to note that these reports alone cannot prove whether a drug is responsible for a person’s specific adverse event or death. They’re instead intended to spot potential safety signals that can be further investigated.
At the same time, other researchers and countries have reported similar cases of serious complications linked to black market retatrutide. Last month, Australian officials reported that a patient tore their esophagus from constant vomiting. And earlier this May, doctors detailed the case of a man who experienced a week of unceasing diarrhea that sent him to the hospital.
Given how little scrutiny these underground products typically receive, it’s not clear if these people were actually taking retatrutide. Other counterfeit GLP-1s seized by officials have sometimes been found to contain insulin or other drugs. But even if people are taking the genuine article, it’s also possible they were taking much higher doses than used in clinical trials, which would obviously raise the chances of serious side effects.
No drug is without its risks, even after it’s been approved. But people looking for a weight loss edge with black market retatrutide are playing a very dangerous game.
