The Food and Drug Administration received reports in recent months that two people died after taking bootleg versions of an experimental weight-loss drug, according to documents reviewed by CBS News.
The reports link the deaths to products claiming to be retatrutide, a drug being developed by Eli Lilly that hasn’t been approved by the FDA. Federal law prohibits the commercial sale of unapproved drugs, but that hasn’t stopped vendors from selling imitation versions of the experimental drug online at a scale with no modern precedent.
The cases appear to be the first public accounts in the U.S. alleging that unauthorized use of retatrutide — or products claiming to contain it — played a role in a patient’s death, though the details aren’t verified and it is unclear whether the drug was to blame.
The first death reportedly occurred in July, when a healthcare professional informed the FDA that a 41-year-old woman with obesity went into cardiac arrest. The report lists retatrutide as a “suspect product,” noting the woman had obtained it “from an unreliable source.”
Then in September, the FDA received a report that a 49-year-old patient died after a licensed nurse “convinced” her to buy retatrutide from an online peptide vendor and she experienced severe dehydration, malnutrition and cardiac arrest.
Though the reports alone don’t prove that the drugs caused or contributed to patient deaths, they point to the potential dangers of an illicit market for unapproved drugs like retatrutide.
“It is concerning because of the breakdown of our drug-approval process in the United States of America,” said Pieter Cohen, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Two deaths were reported to the FDA. Is the bootleg weight-loss drug “Reta” to blame?
