Counterfeit 'Retatrutide': Melbourne Doctors Warn of Liver Failure Risk

Urgent Warning: This Is Not a Safe Drug to Buy

Senior doctors at a Melbourne hospital have issued a public warning: do not take any substance being sold as "retatrutide." Multiple patients have presented with acute liver failure, kidney injury, and other life-threatening illness after taking products labelled as this experimental weight-loss drug.

This week, the ABC reported the case of Megan Hancocks — a 32-year-old woman who purchased a product labelled as retatrutide from a beautician. Less than a week after her second dose, she was admitted in acute liver failure. She spent approximately one month at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, came close to requiring a liver transplant, and six months later is still on steroids, unable to work, and living with significant ongoing health consequences.

I want to be direct with my patients and anyone considering these products: what is being sold as retatrutide is not retatrutide. It is an untested, unregulated substance from an unknown source — and in Melbourne right now, it is putting people in hospital.

What Is Actually Happening

Retatrutide is an investigational molecule developed by Eli Lilly. It is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials and has not been approved by any regulatory authority in the world — not the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), not the European Medicines Agency, and not Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

No one can legally manufacture or sell retatrutide for human use. The Eli Lilly spokesperson has confirmed this clearly: "Retatrutide is an investigational molecule that has not been approved by any regulator anywhere in the world. No one can legally sell it for human use."

This means any product being sold as "reta" — through beauty clinics, gyms, online vendors, or social media — is a counterfeit product from an unverified manufacturer. Laboratory testing of some vials has been initiated by Austin Hospital doctors, but the contents of most circulating products remain completely unknown.

The Clinical Picture: What Melbourne Doctors Are Seeing

Dr Marie Sinclair, a liver transplant specialist at the Victorian Liver Transplant Unit at Austin Hospital, has now seen and been contacted about multiple cases:

• A woman who presented to the Austin Emergency Department in acute liver failure after purchasing vials labelled as retatrutide online, on the recommendation of her gym
• A woman in her 20s treated at the Austin for liver injury after gym-promoted use
• A man in his 40s who developed severe kidney injury from dehydration caused by diarrhoea approximately 40 times per day

Victoria's Chief Health Officer has issued a formal health alert confirming at least six cases of acute liver toxicity associated with these unapproved peptide products.

Dr Sinclair's description of severe liver injury should be taken seriously: "When there is a severe insult to the liver, the liver cells can die... In severe cases, people can die from liver failure or they need a liver transplant to save their life."

The symptoms reported in these cases include:

• Extreme jaundice (yellowing of the eyes and skin)
• Acute liver failure
• Severe nausea and vomiting
• Abdominal swelling and pain
• Severe fatigue
• Severe diarrhoea and kidney injury from dehydration

Why People Are Seeking It — And Why the Attraction Is Understandable

I understand why patients are curious about retatrutide. Early Phase 2 and now Phase 3 (TRIUMPH programme) data show weight loss results that are genuinely remarkable — up to 30% of body weight at two years, figures previously associated only with bariatric surgery.

Social media amplifies this message constantly. Dr Niloufar Torkamani, director of Austin Hospital's Medical Weight Loss clinic, told the ABC: "I get emails from my patients, 'can you upgrade me to this better medication I heard about on TikTok.'"

But two important facts must not be lost in the excitement:

First, even the legitimate Phase 3 retatrutide (Eli Lilly's) has not completed its regulatory submission. It is not expected to reach Australia until 2028–2029 at the earliest.

Second, the substance being sold online and through beauty clinics is not retatrutide — it is an unknown substance that may contain anything. As Dr Sinclair put it: "We don't know what these things are. It's quite frankly terrifying."

The Particular Danger for People With Lower BMI

Dr Torkamani raised a further concern I want to highlight for my patients: these products are not appropriate for people who are not significantly overweight.

"They're not made for someone who is very, very slim and wants to get a little bit more fat off their body," she said. "In a very low BMI or weight range, they could have a whole other list of complications that would not have been seen even in the clinical trial, because those patients were not included."

Clinical trial participants were selected based on specific eligibility criteria. We simply do not know what happens when these compounds — or their counterfeits — are used by people outside those criteria.

Where These Products Come From

The ABC reported that Megan Hancocks purchased her product from a beautician who sourced vials from a Chinese manufacturer. The Austin Hospital patient purchased hers from an online website. Both believed they were getting a legitimate product; both ended up in acute liver failure.

This reflects a pattern I have seen described increasingly:

• Online vendors operating under "research use only" disclaimers
• Gyms and beauty clinics selling vials purchased from overseas wholesale suppliers
• Social media marketing presenting these products as equivalent to the clinical trial drug

They are not equivalent. They are unregulated, untested, and potentially dangerous.

My Advice to Patients

If anyone contacts you about purchasing retatrutide — whether through social media, a beauty clinic, a gym, or an online store — please decline. If you are already using such a product, please stop and see your doctor.

If you have used a substance labelled as retatrutide and experience any of the following, seek emergency medical care:

• Yellowing of the eyes or skin (jaundice)
• Severe nausea, vomiting, or abdominal pain
• Extreme fatigue
• Severe diarrhoea
• Dark urine or pale stools

For patients genuinely interested in medical weight management, there are approved, evidence-based options available now — including GLP-1 medications such as semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy) and the dual GIP/GLP-1 agonist tirzepatide (Mounjaro). These are prescribed, monitored, and backed by extensive safety data. They are what I prescribe in my clinic.

Retatrutide — if it passes regulatory review — may become an option in future years. Until then, the only safe path is through evidence-based, medically supervised care.

Source: ABC News, "Warning issued over counterfeit weight-loss drugs labelled as retatrutide," 12 June 2026. Victoria's Chief Health Officer health alert, June 2026.