Malaysia reports 697 retatrutide products seized in 12 raids

Malaysia’s Health Ministry has seized 697 retatrutide products in 12 raids carried out from 2025 to September 2026. Retatrutide is an experimental weight-loss drug that is not registered in the country. Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad gave the figures in the Dewan Rakyat, the lower house of Parliament, on Nov 2, 2026, putting the estimated value of the seized products at 341,000 ringgit, according to reports in The Star, the New Straits Times and The Sun.

What the minister said

Dzulkefly was answering a question from Zaliha Mustafa, the member for Sekijang, who asked whether anyone had been arrested over the online sale of GLP-1 products promoted by influencers on social media, and what firmer steps the ministry would take.

The minister said the seizures came from the ministry’s Pharmacy Enforcement Division. “The seizures involved an estimated value of RM341,000, and the product has yet to be included in our approved formulations,” he said, as quoted by The Star. He added that the division also ran seven enforcement operations against Ozempic and semaglutide sold without authorization, seizing 62 products worth 64,170 ringgit.

He listed the tools the ministry uses: ongoing monitoring, screening of advertisements, removal of listings from e-commerce platforms, investigation of complaints and raids on sellers of unregistered medicines. The Sun reported that he said patients who need GLP-1 treatment can apply through the ministry’s existing special drug approval mechanism, and that 240 applications were approved from January to September 2026.

Why retatrutide is a target

Retatrutide is an Eli Lilly drug candidate. It is still in late-stage testing: the registry entry for TRIUMPH-1, one of Lilly’s Phase 3 trials in people with obesity or overweight, lists it under the code LY3437943. No regulator has approved it. In August, the ministry warned the public against so-called weight-loss pens claimed to contain retatrutide and said that, as of August 17, 2026, no product containing it had been registered with the Drug Control Authority, as Malay Mail reported.

Malaysia is the latest government outside the United States to put numbers on the gray market in retatrutide. Health officials in New South Wales, Australia, have tied a large share of peptide-related emergency visits to the drug, as we reported in October. Unlike a warning, a seizure count shows that products are physically reaching sellers in the country, and that enforcement is landing on them.

What is not known

The reports do not say whether anyone has been arrested or charged in the retatrutide cases, which was the first part of the question put to the minister. They do not say what a “unit” means here, whether a pen, a vial or a package, or how the ministry estimated the value. The ministry has not said whether it tested the seized products, so it is not known whether they contained retatrutide at all. The minister spoke in Parliament, and the outlets’ English renderings of his remarks differ slightly in wording. The official parliamentary record for the sitting was not yet available when this story was published.

What to watch

Watch the official record of the Nov 2 sitting for the full answer, any arrest or prosecution figures the ministry releases, and whether it moves on the e-commerce and social media platforms where the products are promoted.