As reports surface around the world of knockoff copies of Eli Lilly's keenly anticipated weight-loss therapy retatrutide, the company has sued companies it accuses of participating in an illegal black market for the drug. Lilly has filed six new lawsuits – naming US companies Aesthetic Envy, Astra, Legendary Peptides, Striker Pharmacy, Texas Peptides, and Lone Star Peptide as defendants – alleging they are selling black-market retatrutide to the public. There are numerous reports that organised crime networks have started manufacturing counterfeit retatrutide products – complete with fake brand names and bespoke packaging – on an internationally industrial scale. Last October, for example, the UK's MHRA seized 2,000 pen injectors purporting to contain retatrutide and Lilly's other weight-loss drug tirzepatide, along with tens of thousands of empty pens ready to be filled, from a single site. It said: "Drug regulators, customs agencies, law enforcement, and other government authorities must treat the sale of unapproved retatrutide as the urgent public health crisis it is, prioritising enforcement and coordinating across borders to dismantle the criminal networks selling these drugs."