India seizes more than 260 suspected counterfeit Mounjaro pens, arrests two

Indian drug regulators seized more than 260 suspected counterfeit pens of Eli Lilly's Mounjaro, a tirzepatide injection approved in the country for diabetes and weight loss, and arrested two people accused of making and selling them, the Haryana Food and Drug Control Administration said ^[1].

Officials in the northern state of Haryana recovered the pens from a vehicle on the outskirts of New Delhi on Saturday, according to a statement from the state drug control agency ^[1]. The two arrested people were selling the pens on the online marketplace IndiaMART at a 27 percent discount to the genuine drug's price, Drug Control Officer Amandeep Chauhan told Reuters ^[1].

Reuters reported that the story was corrected after Chauhan revised the number of suspected counterfeit pens seized to more than 260, down from an earlier figure of more than 500 ^[1].

Raw materials traced to an e-commerce platform

The primary accused did not hold a pharmaceutical license and made the products at a private property, Chauhan said ^[1]. He said the peptides used in the drugs were sourced from vendors on the Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba ^[1]. Officials recovered large quantities of raw materials from the property on Monday, including locally made Mounjaro packaging labels, with a total value of about 7 million rupees, or roughly $75,000 at the exchange rate Reuters cited of 93.09 rupees to the dollar ^[1].

Alibaba and IndiaMART did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment, and Reuters said it could not independently verify the claims ^[1].

Chauhan said the pens had not been stored under proper temperature conditions and showed differences in font size and other label details compared with the original product, which he said raised suspicion that they were counterfeit ^[1]. Samples have been sent to government-run laboratories for confirmation, he said, and the accused were in judicial remand for further investigation ^[1].

Eli Lilly told Reuters in a statement: "Lilly takes patient safety extremely seriously and welcomes regulatory authority's action against illicit medicines," adding that it is supporting the investigation ^[1].

A fast-growing market

Mounjaro was approved in India for diabetes and weight loss, launched there in 2025, and has become the country's top-selling drug by value ^[1]. India's obesity market — which includes Mounjaro, Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drugs and several cheaper generic alternatives — is expected to be valued at 80 billion rupees, about $859 million, by 2030, according to Reuters ^[1].

Why it matters for patients

Counterfeit injectable drugs sit outside the supply chain that regulators, manufacturers and licensed pharmacies are set up to check. In this case, the pens were allegedly produced at a private property by someone without a pharmaceutical license, using peptides bought from online vendors, and were not stored at proper temperatures ^[1]. Each of those details matters for a medicine that is injected: the contents, the sterility and the dose cannot be assumed to match the label.

The pens were offered at a 27 percent discount on a general business-to-business marketplace rather than through a pharmacy ^[1]. Investigators have not said what the pens actually contained, and the samples are still being tested, so the exact composition is not yet known ^[1].

The seizure took place in India. It has not been reported whether any of these specific pens, or others from the same alleged operation, were sold outside India or reached the United States ^[1].

Health authorities have not released information on whether anyone was harmed by the pens, and no injuries have been reported ^[1].

What happens next

Government-run laboratories are testing the samples to confirm whether the pens were counterfeit and what they contained; no date for those results has been disclosed ^[1].

The two arrested people remain in judicial remand while the investigation continues, according to Chauhan ^[1]. Reuters reported that neither Alibaba nor IndiaMART had responded to its requests for comment at the time of publication ^[1]. Lilly said it is supporting the investigation ^[1].