Online treatment service providers have been encouraged 'to review their commercial relationships with third parties' to ensure they abide by medicines advertising regulations, particularly regarding weight-loss medications.

This comes as one company, Habitual Healthcare, has changed how it collaborates with online influencers, on the advice of the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

In particular, it has stopped using content creators with unique discount codes and tracking links to advertise prescription-only weight-loss medication to the general public.

And it has had to update its internal procedures for collaborating with content creators in future.

The MHRA added that it 'would encourage all treatment service providers to review their commercial relationships with third parties as required to ensure all parties comply with the advertising regulations'.

Separately, Lloyds Pharmacy Online Doctor and four other companies have had to amend their advertising of weight-loss medications following complaints to the MHRA.

The MHRA published the following January list of companies that amended their advertising following MHRA action on complaints to ensure that Prescription-Only Medicines (including advertisement for use outside the terms of their licence) were not promoted to the public:

  • Expert Health Ltd t/a Lloyds Pharmacy Online Doctor
  • Healthera Ltd
  • Outcome Diagnostics Limited t/a Liverpool Weight Loss Clinic
  • Outcome Diagnostics Limited t/a Medicspot
  • Second Nature Healthy Habits Ltd t/a secondnature.io

The regulator said it had advised some of the companies on the list 'that images of, or information about, medicines that are not licensed for weight loss should not be presented as such on their webpages or materials'.

And it said it had 'reminded them that the suitability of a particular product as part of a weight-management service should be a professional prescribing decision based on a consultation to identify the suitability of any product or treatment for an individual'.

It added that the list 'relates to specific advertising action taken on a particular date and is no endorsement of the ongoing practices of the website'.

A spokesperson for Medicspot told The Pharmacist: 'We take our regulatory obligations seriously and maintain rigorous compliance with MHRA advertising guidance.

'Following MHRA's advice regarding our advertising materials, we took immediate action to update our website content.

'We have updated our internal processes to regularly monitor our websites and promotional materials for compliance.

'Our prescribing decisions have always been and will continue to be made on an individual basis following comprehensive clinical assessments with qualified healthcare professionals.

'With nearly a decade of providing safe and effective care to our patients, we maintain the highest standards of patient care and regulatory compliance in everything we do.'