Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has filed a lawsuit against several knockoff Mounjaro clinics. Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro lawsuits are filed against 10 U.S. medical spas, wellness centers and compounding pharmacies. This Mounjaro lawsuit is filed in an attempt to stop them from “the unlawful marketing and sale of non-FDA approved compounded products” which the company says they’re “fraudulently claiming” to be its medication, which contains the active ingredient tirzepatide.
Mounjaro bogus weight loss medications are being sold by several U.S. medical spas, wellness centers and compounding pharmacies. In four separate Mounjaro lawsuits filed in Florida and Texas federal courts, Eli Lilly is seeking orders barring Knockoff Mounjaro clinics Better Life Pharmacy, ReviveRX, Rx Compound Store and Wells Pharmacy Network from selling tirzepatide, and requesting unspecified damages.
Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro lawsuit
Eli Lilly is taking legal action against fake Mounjaro selling. The Indianapolis-based drugmaker is accusing the four compounding pharmacies, which make customized drug preparations for customers, of violating federal and state consumer protection and competition laws by selling unregulated versions of Mounjaro.
Lilly is the only company with U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to sell tirzepatide drugs. Mounjaro, which is approved to treat Type 2 diabetes, is manufactured by and commercially available only through Eli Lilly. The company notes that the medications are available only in prefilled single-dose pens.
Meanwhile, the FDA has not issued a compounding warning for tirzepatide. However, Mounjaro has been on the FDA’s Drug Shortages list since last year, along with Ozempic and Wegovy.
Mounjaro bogus weight loss drug
The drugmaker Eli Lilly is seeking similar injunctive orders and damages against six knockoff Mounjaro clinics from federal courts in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, South Carolina and Utah, accusing them of infringing its trademark by advertising compounded tirzepatide as Mounjaro.
“Defendants use Lilly’s trademark to attract customers and generate revenues and profits, including by passing off as ‘Mounjaro’ their own unapproved compounded drugs purporting to contain tirzepatide, and doing so for a use for which Mounjaro is not approved, namely weight loss,” Eli Lilly said in the lawsuits.
The defendants either did not immediately respond to requests for comment or could not be reached.
Other lawsuits
Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro lawsuits come just over two months after rival Novo Nordisk (NOVOb.CO), which markets the popular obesity treatment Wegovy, sued several medical spas and three compounding pharmacies. This was for selling products claiming to contain semaglutide, the main ingredient in Wegovy and the related diabetes drugs Ozempic and Rybelsus.
Eli Lilly on reason for Mounjaro lawsuit
Lilly in a statement said, “products claiming to contain tirzepatide that are made and/or distributed by compounding pharmacies or distributed by counterfeit sources have not been reviewed by the U.S. FDA or global regulatory agencies for safety, quality, or efficacy.”
In May, the FDA warned about the safety risks of using compounded or custom-made versions of popular weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic. As per FDA it had received reports of adverse events after patients used compounded versions of semaglutide.
However, as per agency depending on circumstances, compounded drugs can be made and distributed with fewer restrictions when the original drug appears on its drug shortages list, which Mounjaro currently does.
Analysts and industry executives have said annual sales of weight-loss treatments like Wegovy and Mounjaro, once it is approved to treat obesity, could hit $100 billion within a decade. And, that Lilly’s product could eventually account for more than half of those sales.
