Dionne Spence, Chief Enforcement Officer at the GPhC, said:
“We are continuing to work very closely with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to tackle adverts for prescription-only medicines by pharmacies that don’t comply with the law and rules on the advertising and promotion of medicines.
“We have referred pharmacies to the ASA and the MHRA where we have identified concerns about their advertising and promotion through our inspections and investigations.
“Our joint enforcement notice with the ASA and MHRA on medicines used for weight management emphasises that failing to comply with the law and rules could result in the GPhC taking enforcement action against the pharmacy, the pharmacy owner, the Superintendent Pharmacist, or the pharmacy professionals involved. We will be carefully reviewing the ASA rulings for the six pharmacies registered with the GPhC to consider if we need to take any further enforcement action in these cases.
“The ASA’s review of adverts from 35 pharmacies found that 99% of adverts complied with the legal requirement not to name the specific medicine (80 out of 10,000 adverts mentioned the medication name). But the ASA’s rulings have made clear that the use of various terms like “GLP-1s” or certain images, such as images of unbranded injection pens, that indirectly advertise medicines used for weight-management are also prohibited. We will be highlighting this to pharmacy owners and Superintendent Pharmacists, so they understand this and can make sure their adverts comply with the law and rules going forward.”