Lilly asks trade regulators to block imports of fake Mounjaro

Eli Lilly said on Oct. 19, 2023, that it sued 11 online pharmacies to stop them from importing, selling and distributing products claiming to contain tirzepatide, the active ingredient in its diabetes drug Mounjaro ^[1]. The company filed its complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), an agency that can issue import bans and order products removed from the market once they enter the country ^[1].

The defendants named in the suit include five U.S.-based sellers — Artic Peptides, Strate Labs, Supopeptide, The Triggered Brand, and Unewlife — along with Britain's Biolabshop, Spain's Super Human Store, Steroide Kaufen in Poland, and China's Audrey Beauty, Mew Mews Company and AustroPeptide ^[1]. Lilly said lab testing of AustroPeptide's product, which was marketed as containing tirzepatide, showed it was actually "nothing more than sugar alcohol" ^[1]. In its complaint, Lilly called the products "dangerous research chemicals that are not approved for human consumption and have no connection to Eli Lilly or Mounjaro" ^[1].

Lilly is accusing the online sellers of trademark infringement, falsely associating themselves with the company and its approved product, and making false or misleading claims in their advertising ^[1]. Under ITC procedure, once the complaint is published in the Federal Register, the commission has 30 days to decide whether to accept it for review ^[1]. Lilly is the only company with FDA approval to sell tirzepatide products in the United States ^[1].

This import case follows a separate lawsuit Lilly filed exactly one month earlier, on Sept. 19, 2023, against 10 U.S. medical spas, wellness centers and compounding pharmacies in federal courts in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, South Carolina and Utah, over products claiming to contain tirzepatide ^[1]. Around the same time, the FDA published warning letters to two online vendors telling them to stop selling unapproved versions of both tirzepatide and semaglutide, the ingredient in Novo Nordisk's Wegovy ^[1].

Why it matters for patients

People searching online for cheaper tirzepatide have a growing number of options that are not FDA-approved and, according to Lilly's own testing, do not always contain what they claim ^[1]. The AustroPeptide sample that turned out to be sugar alcohol is a concrete example of the risk: a buyer could pay for a drug and receive something with no active ingredient at all, or potentially something else entirely ^[1]. Lilly's expanding legal campaign — now reaching from domestic compounders and medical spas to overseas import channels — signals that the company sees counterfeit and unapproved products as a widespread problem rather than an isolated one ^[1]. For patients, this underscores that products sold outside the regulated U.S. pharmacy supply chain, especially through unfamiliar international websites, carry uncertainty about what is actually in the vial.

What happens next

After Lilly's ITC complaint is published in the Federal Register, the commission has 30 days to decide whether to accept the case for investigation ^[1]. The sources do not say when that publication happened or what the ITC ultimately decided. It is also not yet known from these sources how the earlier September lawsuits against U.S. medical spas and compounding pharmacies were resolved, or whether additional import cases followed this one ^[1].