About two years ago, Henry, who is 6ft 3in, weighed 210lb, which meant he was only slightly overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention body mass index.<\/p>\n
Still, the thirtysomething who lives in the Pacific north-west had hypertension, sleep apnea and body image issues, so he started taking the weight-loss drug Ozempic. While he dropped pounds, he experienced constipation, a common side-effect, so he wanted to try retatrutide, another peptide which not only targets GLP-1 but two other hormone receptors as well.<\/p>\n
He had read about it in the news and on Reddit forums.<\/p>\n
The problem is, the US Food and Drug Administration has not approved the drug, so Henry bought it online from sellers in China.<\/p>\n
Henry, who did not want his last name used, is among a growing number of people dissatisfied with the revolutionary weight-loss drugs that can be obtained legally with a prescription and have instead turned to the gray market to purchase retatrutide, which is manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and is being studied in clinical trials.<\/p>\n
Physicians see the drug as a promising potential solution for people struggling with obesity, but strongly warn patients that they are seriously risking their health by using it without oversight from doctors and government regulators. Yet these warnings often go unheeded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these medications should be monitored and prescribed in a medical situation where the doctor or the clinic is partnering with the patient on a complete plan\u201d including \u201cmonitoring their lab [work], their vital signs, their response\u201d, said Dr David Shafer, a plastic surgeon in New York who takes the drug. \u201cIt\u2019s really the self-prescribing and unknown usage that is leading to a lot of the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Retatrutide could work well in helping people lose weight \u2013 and potentially have other health benefits \u2013 because whereas Ozempic targets one receptor, and tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound, targets GLP-1 and the receptor GIP, the newer drug is a \u201ctriple agonist\u201d, meaning it targets those two receptors and glucagon, which speeds up the body\u2019s metabolism and helps it break down fat cells for energy.<\/p>\n
Counterfeit retatrutide seized in UK raid in October 2025. Photograph: MHRA<\/p>\n
In an 80-week clinical trial, patients with severe obesity and heart disease taking the highest weekly doses of \u2060retatrutide achieved an average weight loss of 22%, or 55lb, according to Eli Lilly<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more natural gut hormones that you upregulate, the more weight loss we see,\u201d said Dr Caroline Messer, an endocrinologist in New York.<\/p>\n If a patient were to ask Messer whether she recommends the drug, she would say: \u201cWholeheartedly \u2013 but not through the gray market. Just wait till it hits the market.\u201d<\/p>\n Patients, in fact, ask Messer about retatrutide about five times daily, she said.<\/p>\n Most of them \u201chave maxed out on Zepbound and still are not at their target weight, but it\u2019s also people who enjoy being at the cutting edge of things\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n A Reddit group<\/a> dedicated to the drug gets more than 179,000 visits each week.<\/p>\n The demand for the drug is \u201cconcerning because of the way it\u2019s been popularized through podcasts and politicians, not through doctor-patient relationships\u201d, said Dan Burke, a former division chief of the US Food and Drug Administration office of criminal investigations.<\/p>\n In August, Eli Lilly announced it would provide a limited number of patients access to the drug before the FDA approves it, Reuters reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Messer said that while the process is supposed to help patients \u201cwho are desperate\u201d to try the drug, it is \u201cjust so unbelievably difficult\u201d to qualify for special access that it could take years to obtain it, by which time the FDA will likely have already approved it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt pits the patient against the doctor because now the patient thinks that we are not doing everything we can to get them the medication, where it\u2019s really actually just this super-onerous process,\u201d Messer said.<\/p>\n As such, patients are finding other ways to obtain the drug. The Reddit group features a \u201cbeginner\u2019s guide\u201d to getting it through the gray market and encourages people to \u201cfind communities (not on Reddit)\u201d, \u201cget tapped in\u201d and \u201cvet vet vet like your money depends on it\u201d.<\/p>\n The guide also provides instructions on dosing and warns people not to use the product if it comes in a prefilled pen.<\/p>\n Eli Lilly recently filed lawsuits against six companies that allegedly sold the drug, including Lone Star Peptide, which is based in Texas and markets the drug for \u201cresearch use only\u201d, and Aesthetic Envy Cosmetic Centers, a med-spa in Sacramento, California.<\/p>\n A person who answered the phone at Lone Star Peptide declined to comment. Aesthetic Envy did not respond to a request.<\/p>\n \u201cIllegal drugs made outside of a regulated, inspected supply chain are more likely to contain bacteria and other harmful contaminants and impurities. Consumers have no way to know whether these products are safe or effective,\u201d a lawsuit states.<\/p>\n Messer argues that obtaining the drug through the gray market is potentially dangerous because patients do not know how much of the drug the product contains or its purity. In June, the Victoria state government in Australia reported six cases<\/a> of acute liver toxicity among patients who consumed a product labeled as retatrutide.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something that you are injecting, and you don\u2019t know where it\u2019s being made,\u201d Messer said.<\/p>\n