Unregistered Retatrutide in Panama: Minsa Alert

Complete guide: GLP-1 drugs: a complete guide to semaglutide and beyond

What the Ministry of Health said in Panama about retatrutide

In Panama, on August 24, 2026, TVN Noticias reported that the National Directorate of Pharmacy and Drugs (DNFD) of the Ministry of Health (Minsa) had received health alerts about injectable weight-loss products promoted on social media, and that some contain retatrutide, an active ingredient with no sanitary registration in the country¹. Uriel Pérez, director of Pharmacy and Drugs, warned that using a medicine whose origin is uncertain and that has not even been authorized puts lives at risk¹.

The TVN report cites no specific regulation and reports no retatrutide seizures; it limits itself to the warning and to Minsa's advice to avoid injectables or substances bought through unauthorized channels and to consult a professional before starting any weight-loss treatment¹. It is worth being precise: this is an alert and a lack of registration, not a court case.

Which products the alert names: from tirzepatide to NAD+

The list reported by TVN includes tirzepatide, retatrutide 10 mg/ml, "Retatrutide" R10, R20 and R30, GHK-Cu, LIPO-C + B12 and NAD+ 10 mg/ml¹. The report does not identify which authority issued the international alert. However, five of those products match Colombia's INVIMA Alert No. 181-2026 (June 23, 2026): tirzepatide, retatrutide 10 mg/mL, GHK-Cu, LIPO-C + B12 and NAD+ 10 mg/mL, offered as weight-control treatments and lacking sanitary registration⁵. That overlap is our own observation; TVN does not state it.

What matters for the physician is that the list mixes an approved GLP-1/GIP agonist (tirzepatide), a triple agonist still under investigation (retatrutide) and injectable peptides or complexes sold online. If they are bought through that channel, nobody guarantees the contents of any of them.

"No sanitary registration" means nobody guarantees what is in the vial

According to the authorities cited by TVN, the lack of registration means there is no guarantee about the product's composition, quality, safety or efficacy¹. The World Health Organization states that "falsified medical products deliberately misrepresent their identity, composition or source" and that they are often sold online or in informal markets¹⁰.

Market evidence for GLP-1 products is consistent. In a test-purchase study of illegal online pharmacies, all three semaglutide vials received were judged probable substandard or falsified products: content exceeded the labeled amount by 28.56%-38.69%, endotoxin was detected in every sample, and measured purity was 7.7%-14.37% against the 99% claimed¹¹. PAHO warned that such products "may contain incorrect doses, different active ingredients, or undeclared substances"⁶. These are semaglutide data, not retatrutide data, but they illustrate the kind of risk the channel carries.

Clinical cases are already appearing. A report from Edinburgh describes a man with type 1 diabetes who, after self-administering an online-purchased product marketed as retatrutide, developed vomiting, diarrhea, hyperglycemia, ketonemia (peak 4.3 mmol/L) and acute kidney injury; the authors state that causation cannot be established, since Shigella flexneri infection was also present¹². A 2026 review in Missouri Medicine groups retatrutide among investigational drugs without an established human safety profile, alongside peptides such as BPC-157 and TB-500, and cites contamination, impurities and inaccurate dosing as risks¹³.

What is known about retatrutide, and what is still unapproved

Retatrutide is a triple agonist of the GIP, GLP-1 and glucagon receptors. In the phase 3 TRIUMPH-1 trial (2,339 adults with obesity without diabetes, 80 weeks), mean weight change was -17.6%, -23.7% and -25.0% across the three doses studied versus -3.9% with placebo, and the most common adverse events were gastrointestinal¹⁴. In TRIUMPH-2, in adults with obesity and type 2 diabetes, the difference versus placebo at week 80 ranged from -6.9% to -13.8% depending on dose, again with gastrointestinal events predominating¹⁵.

None of that amounts to an approval. Healio reported on August 14, 2026 that Eli Lilly sued six companies in the United States for selling purported versions of retatrutide; per the article, "Retatrutide has not yet been reviewed by the FDA," and the company plans to submit its license application in the first quarter of 2027⁹. The FDA, for its part, says retatrutide cannot be used in compounding under federal law and warns about illegal products labeled "for research purposes"⁸. For the physician in Panama the consequence is simple: trial results come from a product made and controlled by the sponsor, not from the contents of a vial bought through Instagram.

What to do in the clinic: ask, document and report

• Ask without judging. Add a question about injectables or peptides bought on social media to the clinical history. PAHO recommends training health workers on risks and warning signs⁶.
• Document the product. Record brand name, presentation, seller and lot if the patient kept them; in its alert INVIMA asked professionals to report the product's source⁵.
• Watch higher-risk patients. The Edinburgh case shows a patient with type 1 diabetes can decompensate quickly with vomiting and diarrhea¹².
• Report. On September 15, 2026 the DNFD launched VigiMedic Panamá (medicines) and VigiVac Panamá (vaccines), reachable from its website for professionals and the public; suspected therapeutic failure or quality defects are reported through the FADDI platform⁴.
• Check the channel. For a falsification alert, Minsa asks people to buy only from authorized pharmacies and establishments and to report irregular points of sale to line 501-0306, as it said in its August alert on a falsified Mounjaro lot³.

PAHO sums it up: these medicines should be used "exclusively under medical prescription" with clinical follow-up⁷. More context in our articles on the Minsa campaign against falsified medicines, falsified Ozempic and Mounjaro in Panama, pharmacovigilance with VigiMedic and retatrutide in phase 3 and the gray market.