Social media is fueling enthusiasm for new weight loss drugs. Are regulators watching?

Social media is fueling enthusiasm for new weight loss drugs

What patients have heard, doctors said, is nonstop hype, even misinformation, from social media influencers.

Last summer, investment bank Morgan Stanley found mentions of one of these drugs on TikTok had tripled. People are streaming into doctors’ office to inquire about what they’ve heard are miracle drugs.

“I’ll catch people asking for the skinny pen, the weight loss shot, or Ozempic,” said Priya Jaisinghani, an endocrinologist and clinical assistant professor at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.

Competition to claim a market that could be worth $100 billion a year for drugmakers alone has triggered a wave of advertising that has provoked the concern of regulators and doctors worldwide. But their tools for curbing the ads that go too far are limited — especially when it comes to social media. Regulatory systems are most interested in pharma’s claims, not necessarily those of doctors or their enthused patients.

Few drugs of this type are approved by the FDA for weight loss — they include Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy. But after shortages made that treatment harder to get, patients turned to other pharmaceuticals — like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro — that are approved only for Type 2 diabetes. Those are often used off-label — though you wouldn’t hear that from many of their online boosters.