Eli Lilly and Company escalated its continued fight to protect patients from the dangerous black market for retatrutide, filing 6 new lawsuits against US entities selling black-market products in addition to having referred hundreds of bad actors to regulators and law enforcement worldwide.

Lilly is also calling on the entities that sellers use to conduct their illegal business—social media and e-commerce platforms, credit card companies, payment processors and shipping and logistics carriers—to help protect patients and fight this illicit activity. According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), unapproved drugs sold for human use may pose significant risks for patients and are illegal.

David A Hyman, MD, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Lilly, said, "Retatrutide is being rigorously studied as part of a comprehensive clinical trial development program. We take the responsibility of evaluating the safety and efficacy of our investigational medicines seriously. What is being sold on the black market is not a medicine – it is entirely unverified, unapproved and not worth the risk."

Retatrutide is an investigational molecule in phase 3 clinical trials for obesity, type 2 diabetes and other related indications. No medicine containing retatrutide has yet been approved for human use by any regulatory agency in the world. It cannot be sold to consumers.

FDA has made clear that sales of unapproved retatrutide to consumers are illegal, that retatrutide cannot be lawfully compounded, and that so-called "research-use only" products "are of unknown quality and may be harmful to consumers' health. Yet, black-market sellers and businesses posing as legitimate medical providers openly sell retatrutide as a weight-loss "hack."