Overview

• The Landeskriminalamt Hannover recorded a jump from low to high triple-digit cases of forged weight loss injection prescriptions in Lower Saxony over the past year.
• Bremen police have opened investigations into six prescription forgery cases for slimming medications so far this year.
• The Federal Criminal Police Office attributes the nationwide uptick to high drug costs paired with narrow patient eligibility plus growing off-label use of diabetes treatments for weight loss.
• Representatives of the Apothekerkammer Niedersachsen warn that more professional forgeries are complicating pharmacists’ ability to spot counterfeit scripts.
• Pharmacies are being alerted through regional chambers to scrutinize suspicious prescriptions; dispensing is refused when irregularities are detected.