Vials of replica weight loss drugs Ozempic and Mounjaro are being illegally shipped across the world from a house on the outskirts of Sydney.
Inside a brown parcel, under layers of plastic and wet foil wrapping, nestled in between two no-longer frozen ice packs, is a vial of red liquid.
We ordered one of the red vials to track down who's behind the operation and found a complex web of fake pharmacies leading back to one man in Sydney's south west.Like many medical practices around the country, his GP clinic, in a small north-east Tasmanian fishing town, still relies on antiquated fax services to send pathology forms and scripts."BREAKTHROUGH MEDICAL WEIGHT LOSS SOLUTIONS," one read. The faxes kept coming.
The condition, known as peripheral neuropathy, can be serious, and cause permanent loss of sensation. The patient ended up in hospital. Another patient at the clinic was surprised when the pharmacy offered to sell her more of the drugs before her first order even arrived. Compounding pharmacies are meant to fill a gap in the market – providing one-off medications for people when there's no commercial product available.
He also tried to contact the pharmacy without success. Without a specific pharmacist to complain about, there was nothing the pharmacy board could do either. Some said they'd paid money and never been sent the drugs. One patient, who had received a red vial, just like those sent to Tasmania – sent Adam a photo."Straight away I was like, my brain says that is not sterile at all … I said, 'Do not inject that because that is not sterile', Adam said."I said, 'These are cowboys, expect the worst'."
They said the tenants stopped paying rent and suddenly disappeared, leaving all their equipment including a pill press in the property and a pile of unopened mail.Mail for the owners of the compounding pharmacy still arrives here, addressed to even more companies and pharmacy names. It's strewn in the gutter covered in debris.Total Compounding Pharmaceuticals wasn't just selling to patients here, it also illegally exported weight loss drugs overseas.
At least one bank account he used to take money from customers under the name "TCP compound" is now part of an AUSTRAC investigation and has been closed. Compounding versions of medications is allowed when it's done by a registered pharmacist in a licensed pharmacy, but even in that case, there's no one independently checking what's being made.
'Cowboy' pharmacists that mass-produce copycat weight-loss drugs have been warned. Here's what we knowUnited StatesWhat does the government really think about the economy? We'll find out in the budget
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