Missouri AG sounds alarm over Chinese ingredients used in popular weight-loss drugs
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Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has joined nearly two dozen top prosecutors in asking the federal government to investigate potential risks involving Chinese suppliers of ingredients used in compounded weight-loss and diabetes drugs.
The coalition sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio warning of what it says are gaps in federal oversight of pharmaceutical ingredients entering the United States.
The concerns include ingredients used in compounded GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide and tirzepatide. Hanaway said the coalition wants stronger safeguards to keep unsafe or unapproved ingredients out of the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain.
The attorneys general pointed to the case of Harbin Jixianglong Biotech, a Chinese pharmaceutical company that had been cleared to ship certain GLP-1 ingredients to the United States under an FDA screening program.
An FDA inspection later found the company had purchased semaglutide from suppliers that were not on its approved supplier list, repackaged and relabeled the drug ingredient under its own name and changed manufacturing and retest dates.
The FDA said two affected batches were distributed to the United States before being voluntarily recalled. The agency later removed Harbin from its GLP-1 import program and placed the company on an import alert.
The coalition also raised concerns about reported connections between parts of China's pharmaceutical supply network and companies involved in fentanyl production. The FDA's enforcement action against Harbin does not accuse the company itself of manufacturing fentanyl.
Attorneys general from Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas also joined the letter, making all four states in the Joplin region part of the coalition.
