Two men aged 29 have been arrested following a raid on a country estate near Northampton where around 12,000 doses of unlicensed weight-loss medicines were seized. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) described the haul as the largest ever of its kind in the UK.
Law enforcement officers uncovered a large-scale facility used to manufacture, assemble and distribute unlicensed products, including retatrutide, tirzepatide (sold under the brand name Mounjaro), and other peptide-based medicines. The raid took place on 28 May with support from Northamptonshire police.
Andy Morling, head of the MHRA’s criminal enforcement unit, said the operation demonstrated the agency’s “unwavering commitment to ensuring there is no hiding place for those who cynically put the public’s health at risk for profit”. He added that dismantling the illicit production facility “will have prevented significant public harm”.
Investigators believe the estate was being used as a large-scale site for manufacturing, assembling and distributing the drugs. Substantial quantities of packaging materials and pharmaceutical substances used in illicit production were also seized.
The MHRA previously warned in November 2025 that organised crime gangs had begun manufacturing their own branded weight-loss drugs to resemble legitimate medicines. The first raid on an illegal weight-loss drug factory occurred in Northampton in October 2025, where thousands of empty pens and raw ingredients were seized but no arrests were made.
