MHRA: old patients are still the public

MHRA POM advertising enforcement moved beyond the homepage

Seven named weight-loss providers amended advertising after MHRA action. The promotions appeared on homepages and in a local magazine, emails and a text message. This was not a financial-penalty announcement, prosecution or court judgment: the regulator’s recorded outcome is that the providers amended their advertising.

The decisions form part of the MHRA’s July 2026 advertising-investigation batch, published on 5 August. The agency describes the pages as decisions on adverts reported as possible breaches of medicines-advertising legislation. It also says appearing on the list does not endorse a company’s other or continuing practices.

Previous patients can still be “the public”

The commercially important clarification sits in the weight-loss decision. The MHRA says customers and previous customers do not cease to be members of the public merely because they expressed interest in a medicinal treatment service or previously received a prescription.

The narrow operational lesson is that an email or SMS list is not automatically exempt from the restriction on advertising prescription-only medicines to the public. Prior enquiry, purchase or prescribing history does not itself change the recipient’s status for this purpose.

That does not mean every patient communication is an advertisement. Necessary service, safety, adherence and clinical messages are not interchangeable with proactive promotion. The MHRA Blue Guide and its appendix on treatment-service advertising explain the wider framework; content, purpose, audience and context matter when classifying a specific communication.

Indirect wording still identifies the risk

Avoiding a medicine’s brand name does not necessarily remove promotion risk. In the weight-loss cases, the MHRA identified references including “weight loss injections” and “GLP-1 medication” as wording likely to lead a member of the public to request a POM.

The same pattern appeared outside weight management. Clinic M Medical and The GP Surgery amended their advertising so that Kenalog was not promoted to the public for hay fever, including through the indirect phrase “hay fever injection”. The MHRA also states on that decision page that Kenalog is not licensed as a hay-fever treatment.

These are the regulator’s assessments of particular promotions, not a universal rule that every mention of an injection advertises a medicine. They do show why copy must be assessed for where it leads the reader, not only whether it prints a product name.

Waitlists can create demand too early

Two launch campaigns show a separate risk around authorisation status. The MHRA considered a Phlo Clinic “early access” email promotional because it invited consumers to a waitlist and drew attention to GLP-1 medicines that did not have UK Marketing Authorisation for weight loss at that time. Phlo withdrew the advertisement.

Voy’s campaign used “coming soon”, “a new dawn” and “presale waitlist” wording. Although authorised Orlos appeared in the advertising, the MHRA concluded that the wider context presented promotional information about a future medicine without UK Marketing Authorisation. Voy agreed to amend its practices.

The legal anchor is regulation 279 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, which prohibits advertising a medicinal product for which there is no marketing authorisation, certificate of registration or traditional herbal registration in force.

The channel map

A practical review sequence

The batch supports a non-exhaustive campaign review sequence:

1. Map every public and CRM channel carrying the campaign.
2. Separate promotion of a treatment service from promotion of a medicine.
3. Flag direct and indirect wording that may lead readers towards a POM.
4. Check the medicine’s current UK authorisation and authorised indication.
5. Assess teaser, waitlist, launch and reactivation wording in full context.
6. Obtain qualified legal or regulatory review for fact-specific decisions.

This sequence organises the evidence in the MHRA decisions; it does not certify compliance. For the underlying public-facing restriction, read our guide to UK POM advertising rules. For the wider governance context, see the Scientific Digest on online weight-loss prescribing safety.

The pattern across the batch is that the MHRA assessed the message, audience, medicine’s status and surrounding context—not merely the channel label. The safe operational assumption is not that CRM is private; it is that promotional content still needs a medicines-advertising analysis wherever it appears.