A 38-year-old woman from Birkenhead has issued an urgent warning after an unlicensed weight-loss jab landed her in hospital, saying she “can’t say it enough, get off the pens”. The woman was rushed to hospital after becoming unable to speak or stand, and doctors said she suffered severe hypoglycaemia. She told of using a substance sold as retatrutide, known as “reta”, for about two months before the collapse in October. She said she bought the injections from a friend and believed they were legitimate after scanning a QR code that appeared to take her to a pharmaceutical website. Retatrutide is an experimental drug being developed by Eli Lilly as a potential treatment for obesity, and it is not approved for general use. The company said it cannot legally be sold for human use and warned that counterfeit and black market medicines are unverified and potentially dangerous. According to hospital tests, the episode was attributed to an unlicensed weight-loss injection. The woman said doctors warned she could have died if her friend had found her even half an hour later. She said it took more than an hour for her to regain consciousness. In the weeks since, she reported continued health problems including extreme fatigue, and further tests showed signs of liver damage and high cholesterol that she had not had before. A research doctor who has worked on clinical trials of weight-loss drugs warned that injections obtained through unregulated sources cannot be verified for dose, purity or sterility. He described seeing serious complications, including a young woman who required intensive care after taking a weight-loss injection obtained from a beautician, with the exact substance not established. Britain’s medicines regulator has seized products claiming to contain retatrutide and says it is working to disrupt illegal importation and distribution.