Former Olympic boxer Anthony Fowler is under scrutiny for selling unlicensed weight-loss peptides through his business, Supreme Peptides. Medical experts and regulators warn that supplying unapproved injectables without required health checks poses significant safety risks to the public.
Fowler, who won Commonwealth Games gold in 2014 and represented Team GB at the Rio 2016 Olympics, registered Supreme Peptides in June as an offshoot of his Supreme CBD brand. An investigation revealed the company was offering buyers unlicensed weight-loss peptides for £120 per 40mg dose, claiming the product was similar to licensed obesity medication but without side effects.
Suppliers operating on Fowler’s behalf provided instructions on how to inject the substance over several weeks. Crucially, no medical evaluations, such as checking Body Mass Index or assessing pre-existing health conditions, were conducted prior to sale.
Under UK law, any medical product sold with health claims must be approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Addressing unlicensed supply, an MHRA spokesperson stated: “If a product is classified as a medicine and is not appropriately authorised, we take regulatory compliance action.”
Products pictured on the company website include Tesamorelin, an unapproved medication in the UK priced at £89.99 for 10mg. Although Fowler claims the items are intended for research purposes, medical experts reject the premise when sold directly to the general public.
Channa Jayasena, a professor of medicine at Imperial College London, expressed serious concern over the black-market trade of synthesised compounds. He stated: “This could put people’s lives at risk. You have to make peptides using very strong chemicals and then purify them using more strong chemicals. These chemicals are highly toxic and they are purified under incredibly rigorous conditions and standards, that need to be kept. My concern is that these are black market synthesised peptides, which have potential impurity and no guarantee of what is inside them.”
Instagram suspended Fowler’s primary account following breaches of platform rules. He has since attempted to bypass restrictions by using secondary accounts and encrypted messaging apps. In one online post criticizing regulatory scrutiny, he wrote: “They don’t want you having whats good for you (sic).”
The findings come amidst a wider regulatory crackdown on unlicensed weight-loss treatments sold across online platforms.
