# Drug manufacturers call for a crackdown on illicit obesity medications

An episode of [The Midday Report with Mandy Wiener](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1074292047), 15 Oct 2026, 8:04.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/5dcefa8e-00a9-4595-8ce1-a4ab0080f142/fe8d1a9a-a053-424d-9f40-a57500d5394b/fbad5148-e8e4-4b02-b577-b4e400b99a00/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=18146681-7843-46cf-9a9c-a57500d59fe7

Mandy Wiener speaks to Pharmaceutical Task Group Chair, Dr Stavros Nicolaou about the unrestricted sale of unregistered retatrutide despite its lack of regulatory permission. The Midday Report with Mandy Wiener is 702 and CapeTalk’s flagship news show, your hour of essential news radio. The show is podcasted every weekday, allowing you to catch up with a 60-minute weekday wrap of the day's main news. It's packed with fast-paced interviews with the day’s newsmakers, as well as those who can make sense of the news and explain what's happening in your world. All the interviews are podcasted for you to catch up and listen to. Thank you for listening to this podcast of The Midday Report Listen live on weekdays between 12:00 and 13:00 (SA Time) to The Midday Report broadcast on 702 https://buff.ly/gk3y0Kj and on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from The Midday Report go to https://buff.ly/BTGmL9H and find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/LcbDdFI Subscribe to the 702 and CapeTalk daily and weekly newsletters https://buff.ly/v5mfetc Follow us on social media: 702 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TalkRadio702 702 on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@talkradio702 702 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkradio702/ 702 on X: https://x.com/Radio702 702 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@radio702 CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Something that people maybe aren't talking about enough is where
[0:03] Speaker 1: people are getting their peptides from or where they're getting
[0:07] Speaker 1: their retin-2 tried or whatever it might be. Your obesity
[0:11] Speaker 1: drug pharmaceutical manufacturers urging law enforcement agencies to crack down
[0:16] Speaker 1: on the sale of illegal medicines, saying that they need
[0:19] Speaker 1: urgent action to protect consumers and boost investor confidence.
[0:24] Speaker 2: Dr.
[0:24] Speaker 1: Stavros Nikolaou is the chair of the Pharmaceutical Task Group
[0:30] Speaker 1: and joins us now. Dr. Nikolaou, good afternoon to you.
[0:33] Speaker 1: Thanks very much for your time.
[0:35] Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Mandy. Thanks very much for having me, and
[0:38] Speaker 2: good afternoon to all that are listening in.
[0:40] Speaker 1: What is the concern of the pharmaceutical task group regarding
[0:45] Speaker 1: the proliferation of these medications?
[0:49] Speaker 2: Mandy, firstly, I'd like to draw a distinction. What we're
[0:53] Speaker 2: referencing here is not your narcotics, which are century, if
[1:00] Speaker 2: not decade-old problems. I'm not referencing heroin or or cocaine,
[1:04] Speaker 2: or mandrax, or anything like that here. I'm referencing something
[1:08] Speaker 2: that is equally disturbing and also equally dangerous, and that
[1:15] Speaker 2: is unregistered medicines or medicines that are bought in as
[1:21] Speaker 2: counterfeit or fake medicines and appear to be registered or
[1:25] Speaker 2: appear to be legitimate. So there's a further distinction I'm
[1:28] Speaker 2: drawing there. There's instances where There are registered medicines in
[1:33] Speaker 2: South Africa, and we are quite focused on the weight
[1:37] Speaker 2: loss drugs and the peptides for this conversation. We are
[1:42] Speaker 2: finding that registered medicines are being bought in illicitly, meaning
[1:48] Speaker 2: they're from dubious sources, unknown sources, or worst of all,
[1:53] Speaker 2: from sources that are either non-compliant to GMP standards. or
[2:02] Speaker 2: have no quality standard approvals. So it's a combination of things.
[2:07] Speaker 2: It's a growing problem. It seems to have exacerbated with
[2:13] Speaker 2: these GLP-1 weight loss products, which of course are understandably
[2:18] Speaker 2: in high demand. And the risks to patients and the
[2:22] Speaker 2: public is immense. You referenced Reta-Trutard earlier. I do want
[2:27] Speaker 2: to focus on Reta-Trutard for a moment. Now, retrotrutide is
[2:32] Speaker 2: a medicine that is showing a lot of potential, but
[2:36] Speaker 2: it is still in experimental stage. In other words, it's
[2:40] Speaker 2: still undergoing clinical trials to determine quality, safety, efficacy of
[2:46] Speaker 2: the product. And it's absolutely astonishing. It's almost egregious, I'd suggest,
[2:53] Speaker 2: that Before a metin is proven or registered anywhere in
[2:57] Speaker 2: the world, we are already seeing copies of that in
[3:00] Speaker 2: our own country. And yesterday at this roundtable we hosted,
[3:04] Speaker 2: there was a report of two further deaths on the
[3:09] Speaker 2: counterfeits of True Tide. And these are alarming statistics. And
[3:15] Speaker 2: if left unarrested, the problem is going to grow into
[3:19] Speaker 2: a much bigger one. And the bigger one is when
[3:22] Speaker 2: you start... losing the integrity of your pharmaceutical regulatory and
[3:26] Speaker 2: value chain, then you are in trouble as a country.
[3:30] Speaker 1: It does seem like there's been quite a proliferation. I mean,
[3:32] Speaker 1: you can get it at, you know, a few different
[3:34] Speaker 1: doctors are selling it, gyms seem to be selling it.
[3:38] Speaker 1: So how do you crack down on that? Or is
[3:41] Speaker 1: the problem the converse, Stavros, that it's just taking too
[3:44] Speaker 1: long for it to try to get the requisite authorization
[3:50] Speaker 1: in South Africa?
[3:53] Speaker 2: So let me start off with Reta True Tide again.
[3:56] Speaker 2: So Reta True Tide is still in clinical trials. So
[4:00] Speaker 2: it hasn't been registered in any country in the world.
[4:04] Speaker 2: Clinical trials have particular protocols to ensure safety for the public.
[4:10] Speaker 2: And it's not something that you can rush. You start
[4:13] Speaker 2: rushing and you're not going to get the desired quality, safety,
[4:17] Speaker 2: efficacy outcomes that you seek in the first instance. Um,
[4:21] Speaker 2: so it's, I've been in this industry for 40 years
[4:24] Speaker 2: and it's, um, for me, it's, uh, it's unprecedented where
[4:30] Speaker 2: you're getting medicines that are not registered or still in
[4:33] Speaker 2: clinical trial phases, um, entering the market. And, and that
[4:38] Speaker 2: really holds significant harm potential, as I said earlier. Now,
[4:42] Speaker 2: let me cover another aspect that you raised and, um,
[4:48] Speaker 2: There are two primary channels of illicit trade in these
[4:53] Speaker 2: type of medicines. The first is where products are entering
[4:58] Speaker 2: the country illegally. They're unregistered products. They're untested in many instances.
[5:03] Speaker 2: And they enter through our ports, usually disguised as some
[5:11] Speaker 2: or other product like cat food. We've heard about cat
[5:15] Speaker 2: food or a vitamin. So it comes in under that guise,
[5:19] Speaker 2: but is in fact a peptide or one of these
[5:23] Speaker 2: fake GLP-1 products. So that's the first source. The second
[5:28] Speaker 2: source is what we've encountered in the form of compounding. Now,
[5:33] Speaker 2: the first channel, illicit channel, usually involves non-healthcare professionals. And
[5:42] Speaker 2: these products land up with hairdressers, gym instructors, beauty salons,
[5:48] Speaker 2: et cetera. So that's non-healthcare channels. Then you've got a
[5:55] Speaker 2: phenomenon called compounding, which is permissible in law on a
[6:01] Speaker 2: patient and case-by-case basis. So compounding means that a compounding
[6:07] Speaker 2: pharmacy can compound its own product on a selective basis
[6:13] Speaker 2: on prescription basis for an individual patient. And it's usually
[6:16] Speaker 2: confined to dermatology where dermatologists ask for three or four
[6:21] Speaker 2: creams that don't exist in one proprietary brand to be
[6:24] Speaker 2: combined and usually the pharmacy will compound that. But there's
[6:29] Speaker 2: been an abuse of compounding now in that some of
[6:35] Speaker 2: these compounding pharmacies that are acting unlawfully and the courts
[6:38] Speaker 2: have proven that it is unlawful in recent times are
[6:42] Speaker 2: producing these products on mass at scale and putting patients
[6:47] Speaker 2: in jeopardy. And this is a more difficult thing to
[6:51] Speaker 2: deal with because an unsuspecting public thinks they are receiving
[6:56] Speaker 2: this from a registered healthcare professional. So I guess in conclusion,
[7:00] Speaker 2: two things need to happen here. And two things came
[7:02] Speaker 2: up very strongly yesterday. There are certain slam dunk cases
[7:08] Speaker 2: like selling an unregistered medicine is illegal, whether it's a
[7:11] Speaker 2: doctor pharmacy or a member of a public. that is
[7:14] Speaker 2: selling that it's illegal. That's a slam dunk case. Why
[7:18] Speaker 2: are the enforcement agencies taking so long to raid these facilities,
[7:24] Speaker 2: make arrests and prosecute accordingly? So that's the first thing
[7:27] Speaker 2: that's got to be accelerated. And then the second thing
[7:30] Speaker 2: is very much about educating the public. So are they
[7:34] Speaker 2: aware of this issue? And secondly, to encourage the public
[7:39] Speaker 2: to question where they're getting their medicines from. And if
[7:42] Speaker 2: they are getting medicines dubious medicines or medicines from dubious sources,
[7:47] Speaker 2: then there is a website, on the SEPRA website, there
[7:52] Speaker 2: is a facility for patients and or consumers to report
[7:56] Speaker 2: these things. Dr.
[7:57] Speaker 1: Stavros Nikolaou, thank you so much for speaking to us today.
[8:00] Speaker 1: The chairperson of the Pharmaceutical Task Group.

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