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The Danish drug company Novo Nordisk provided hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of sponsorship to pharmacies including Boots and Lloyds as it sought to boost sales of its slimming drugs in Britain, the Observer can reveal.
The maker of Wegovy and Saxenda weight-loss injections gave money for Google ads to promote weight-loss services, staff training, and the creation of patient information content. In exchange it received detailed reports about website traffic, advertising hit rates and prescription numbers.
The company also struck up sponsorship deals with online pharmacies that in some cases went on to promote its products illegally – including giving £30,000 to a firm later found to have broken rules banning the advertising of prescription-only medicines.
Novo Nordisk said the sponsorships were for legitimate purposes and complied with industry standards. But the deals have been condemned by critics, one of whom said they were a “massive conflict of interest” and raised concerns about the influence of the company over businesses that prescribe its products.
Dr Margaret McCartney, a GP and senior lecturer at the University of St Andrews who researches conflicts of interest in healthcare, said it was “extraordinary” that pharmaceutical companies were sponsoring pharmacies, and that it was particularly concerning that some of the money was for marketing.
She said the cases raised concerns about the effectiveness of the current regulatory regime, which relies on members of the public making complaints. She said professionals also needed to “take some responsibility”. “If a drug company is offering you large sums of money to set up or run a service to prescribe their products, that is obviously a massive conflict of interest,” she said.
The financial links between the clinics and Novo Nordisk – unreported until now – were uncovered through analysis of pharmaceutical industry payments and a ruling by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA). The analysis reveals that, between 2021 and 2023, Novo Nordisk provided sponsorship to several prominent pharmacy chains to “develop and market their weight-loss services”.
In 2022 it signed a £95,000 deal with Boots to fund internal training for store-based pharmacists about adult weight management and the provision of general weight-loss information on the Boots Health Hub page, as well as money for advertising the Boots Online Doctor weight-loss service. Two other pharmacy chains were given free needles, sharps bins, travel wallets and funding for the creation of marketing and patient information materials, including money to one company for a commercial photoshoot.
In exchange for the sponsorship, the pharmacies were each required to provide reports to Novo Nordisk including details such as web traffic, conversion and success rates from adverts, the number of people beginning prescriptions for its weight-loss drug Saxenda, the number of pens prescribed, and patients’ geographical location.
In October, the PMCPA issued a ruling following a complaint from a healthcare professional that Novo’s sponsorship of two pharmacy chains that received free needles amounted to an inducement to prescribe. It said it had “broad concerns” about the arrangements, adding that the requirement for each pharmacy to provide the company with detailed reports meant the deals with Novo Nordisk were not at arm’s length – which is what is required under the pharmaceutical industry code.
It subsequently upheld four breaches against Novo Nordisk of the 2021 industry code, including that it had brought discredit upon the sector and failed to uphold high standards. While it said it was concerned about marketing of prescription-only drugs, it did not uphold a complaint that money had been given to the pharmacies to “aggressively” market weight-loss drugs, nor find that Novo Nordisk was responsible for Google listings by the pharmacies.
Boots said the breaches identified by the PMCPA did not relate to it but the other two companies which are unnamed in the watchdog report. A Boots spokesperson said funding for the provision of “factual and balanced” information was beneficial for patients and that all of its advertising complied with the rules. Lloyds Pharmacy, which received £246,303 worth of sponsorship from Novo Nordisk between 2021 and 2023, went into liquidation owing £293m in January 2024. Its former owner, Hallo Healthcare, declined to comment.
Analysis of data from the industry’s own Disclosure UK initiative also reveals Novo Nordisk signed several sponsorship deals with lesser-known online clinics, which in some cases went on to promote its products illegally. Disclosures reveal it gave £30,000 in sponsorship to the Slimming Clinic, which describes itself as an online medical weight-loss clinic prescribing Novo Nordisk products including Wegovy and Saxenda.
Late last year the company was reprimanded by the medicines regulator after breaking rules on advertising pharmaceutical products. The MHRA said it had been found advertising weight-loss drugs including Wegovy to the public, in breach of rules banning the promotion of prescription-only drugs.
Since then, it has continued posting promotions for weight-loss treatments – albeit not using product brand names. Posts that remained on the Slimming Clinic’s Instagram page as of November 2024 included a picture of a woman next to a weight loss injection pen with the words: “There are so many benefits I’m experiencing since losing weight.” Another showed a photo of a grinning doctor holding a weight loss pen to the camera. The Slimming Clinic did not respond to requests for comment.
In another case, the Danish drug giant paid £50,000 to WebMed pharmacy, which at the time had about £100,000 of assets. Disclosure UK entries show the money was received in 2022.
In early 2023, WebMed posted several times on Instagram promoting Saxenda by name. The posts included a video of a woman squeezing fat on her stomach alongside a caption inviting people to get in touch to “hear more about Saxenda and our new weight management programme due for imminent release”. Another more recent post includes a picture of a woman alongside a box of Wegovy with the words: “Are you ready to try a NEW approach …”. The posts appear to breach the ban on advertising prescription-only medicines. WebMed did not respond to requests for comment.
There is no suggestion that Novo Nordisk was aware of, or is legally responsible for, the posts, which remained online last week. The firm said it monitored marketing and reported companies breaking rules even if it had a relationship with them. It said sponsorship deals with WebMed and the Slimming Clinic were to develop patient support materials, not for marketing, and that it “never condones the promotion of prescription-only medicines to the public in the UK”.
But the cases raise wider questions about systemic issues in the advertising of prescription-only weight-loss drugs. In December a Guardian analysis of rulings by the medicines regulator found that 46 companies – mostly online pharmacies and slimming clinics – had been reprimanded between January 2023 and September 2024 after breaking rules promoting prescription-only weight-loss treatments such as Wegovy.
David Rowland, from the Centre for Health and the Public Interest, said social media advertising of these “highly profitable, highly desirable lifestyle drugs” posed a “massive challenge” for the UK’s regulatory regime. “It is essentially toothless in the current landscape, which is increasingly starting to resemble the wild west,” he said. Novo Nordisk, which has previously faced scrutiny over its payments to healthcare professionals that went on to promote its products, also said the pharmacy sponsorships flagged by the Observer were “provided for legitimate purposes”.
It said its practices aligned with industry standards and that its contracts with pharmacy partners stipulate they will comply with all laws.
A spokesperson added that issues highlighted in the PMCPA ruling had now been addressed: “Where required, we took immediate steps to address the issues identified to ensure compliance with industry regulations.”
An Observer investigation in 2023 found the company poured £21.7m into the UK health sector as it sought to promote its weight-loss drugs, including paying experts who went on to praise Wegovy without always making clear their links to the firm. The company said it had “never deliberately acted” outside legal or ethical standards.
That same year, the company apologised after being found in breach of pharmaceutical industry code over a “disguised promotional campaign” of another of its weight-loss drugs, via online webinars for healthcare professionals.
