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Aidan Jones

Thailand has moved to make weight-loss pens prescription-only, as a glut of the GLP-1 medicines – which mimic the hormones released once someone is full – floods the black market and influencers swarm TikTok to extol the quick wins of the simple injections.
The Southeast Asian nation, which is never far behind wellness or aesthetic trends and has a notorious black market in counterfeit drugs, has seen the uptake of GLP-1 medicines skyrocket, doctors say, including the market-leading Ozempic brand.
But doctors have warned that the US$240 to US$360 monthly cost of having the drugs prescribed by doctors has caused a black market to mushroom, including a tsunami of fake and potentially dangerous smuggled medicines.
As of Tuesday, Thailand’s consumer watchdog, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), designated weight-loss pens as a “specially controlled drug”, meaning buyers need a doctor’s prescription to access them at pharmacies.
“Following the discovery of inappropriate use of the medication, as well as problems with counterfeit drugs and unregistered drugs in the market, the Thai FDA is also advancing a Track & Trace system to monitor the drug’s journey throughout the entire supply chain,” the FDA said in a statement.
The aim was not to stop patients who “genuinely need the medication”, the statement added, “but rather to help them receive drugs that are of higher quality, safer, and more appropriate for their treatment”.

GLP-1s (glucagon-like peptide-1) are the blockbuster class of drugs that many patients hail for shedding large amounts of weight quickly, as well as managing blood sugar for Type 2 diabetes.
In beauty-obsessed Thailand, where wellness clinics line every main road, the drugs have found a ready market.
An army of young content creators are amplifying their virtues over social media, alarming doctors over the reach of the new generation drugs and their potential dangers.
Across Thai TikTok, how-to-use guides showing mainly young women self-administering pak pakaa (“stab the pen” in Thai, as the jabs are known) are popular among a Gen Z desperate to get thin, but often without the time to exercise or money to pay for prescriptions.
In its place, a shadow market made the drugs affordable, one unlicensed GLP-1 seller told This Week in Asia.
“The pens I sell are three times cheaper than the ones sold by clinics,” the trader said, requesting anonymity, of the US$80 to US$90 black-market jabs.
“Of course mine are not FDA approved. But people keep buying them – even if they don’t admit it to avoid judgment and also in case it affects their health insurance records later at some point.”

One pharmacist with a string of outlets told this Week in Asia that beauty clinics had sprung up offering the short cut to looking thin, irrespective of staff training or quality control over the pens’ contents.
The pharmacist, who asked not to be named to avoid backlash, said it was also easy to find black-market GLP-1 pens from unscrupulous clinics, online sellers and pharmacies.
“I’ve seen young people injecting themselves on social media without the knowledge of how to safely use the needle,” the pharmacist said.
“It is one of the most ludicrous industries in the entire country, with almost no oversight. The Thai beauty standard is thin equals beautiful, no matter what the FDA does, it will not make the problem of abusing weight-loss drugs like this go away.”
As GLP-1 drugs are being explored for their wider potential to help human conditions including asthma, doctors have warned of potentially serious effects from self-administering unknown, unregulated drugs at unsafe doses.
“Weight-loss pens should only be considered after you have exhausted other methods of losing weight, because there are many factors to take into account, including your pre-existing medical conditions. Do not buy them and use them on your own,” said Pitsri Khumanuwong, or “Dr Mom”, a doctor who gives social media advice to her 600,000 followers on TikTok.


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This Week in Asia

Health & Environment

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Asia

Southeast Asia

The country’s consumer watchdog aims to help patients receive ‘higher quality, safer, and more appropriate for their treatment’


The country’s consumer watchdog aims to help patients receive ‘higher quality, safer, and more appropriate for their treatment’.


Wellness

Medicine

TikTok

Thailand makes weight-loss pens prescription-only to counter glut of illegal medicines

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The country’s consumer watchdog aims to help patients receive ‘higher quality, safer, and more appropriate for their treatment’

The country’s consumer watchdog aims to help patients receive ‘higher quality, safer, and more appropriate for their treatment’