"When innovation outpaces regulation pharma leaders must cross organisational boundaries" - Nick Petschek, EMEA MD at Kotter.
Kotter
Stories have continued to emerge surrounding the surge of counterfeit versions of Eli Lilly’s weight-loss drug Retatrutide being sold on TikTok and Meta platforms, posing a dangerous challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. With copies of unlicensed and unproven weight-loss drugs circulating online, pharmaceutical leaders not only face the responsibility of safeguarding public health and protecting their brand’s integrity, but preserving trust in innovation when regulatory timelines can’t keep up with digital demand.
Pharma leaders should keep four key ideas in mind as they navigate similar situations.
Protecting patients through mobilisation
Addressing the threat of unlicensed drugs requires coordinated action across every industry tier, from pharma executive leadership to frontline healthcare providers delivering solutions. TikTok features hundreds of videos featuring users promoting the drug, targeting vulnerable audiences who aren’t educated on the risks that counterfeit copies of the unproven drug pose.
Transparency can also be a competitive advantage during challenging periods. When your brand becomes entwined with unlicensed and unlawful copies, integrating specialist communication strategies is critical. Ensure your messaging remains proactive, evidence-based, and unified in prioritising patient safety while educating audiences about the importance of regulatory processes.
Traditional communications are not sufficient, however. Leaders must meet patients and the public where they engage with the health system, such as frontline health workers, and where they receive information, such as platforms like TikTok. This can mean providing frontline stakeholders, such as pharmacists, with the latest messaging, knowledge, and educational materials to enable them to directly counsel patients misled by social media campaigns. It also means understanding where audiences receive misinformation, and producing educational content designed for these environments. As counterfeit operations grow in sophistication and scale, building organisational capacity to respond rapidly is pivotal, and requires establishing cross-functional teams who have pre-authorised budgets and clear decision-making authority. When R&D, regulatory affairs, legal, communications and digital teams collaborate around a shared mission, you embed the agility necessary to address emerging threats within hours of detection.
Transforming crisis into strategic advantage
Rising counterfeit drugs that expose patients to genuine harm require leaders to move beyond reactive processes and to establish comprehensive, forward-looking detection, prevention, and response systems. There are real consequences at stake, with users reporting severe health effects. Leaders who acknowledge the risks and take decisive action will not only mitigate harm, they’ll also identify the strategic opportunities embedded within the disruption.
Scenario planning should be a critical foundation of your crisis protocols as an organisation. These plans must undergo rigorous and regular testing rather than remaining dormant until emergencies arise. Therefore, when the next wave of illicit products emerges, every stakeholder will understand their responsibilities and can coordinate in real-time through established processes. This preparedness transforms pressure into manageable action.
Another worthwhile step is eliminating any internal obstacles that slow decision making to help teams feel aligned and empowered. Decentralising authority enables teams to respond rapidly to threats without waiting for senior approval. This doesn't eliminate governance; it just defines escalation pathways and pre-authorises budgets before crises occur. This results in an outcomes-focused approach, prioritising results over hierarchy and developing agile response capabilities which are essential when challenges arise.
Once organisations have grasped adaptive capabilities they can rapidly pivot and reframe crises as opportunities by demonstrating operational excellence and patient-centred values. Beyond crisis management, leaders are building a momentum where patients feel informed, reinforcing brand associations with trust, safety and innovation.
Bringing governance up to speed with modern threats
When threats materialise overnight, leaders need governance frameworks that operate at speed while maintaining the rigorous regulatory standards set throughout the pharmaceutical industry. The recent seizure of tens of thousands of counterfeit weight-loss pens from an unauthorised facility near Northampton, proves enforcement after the fact alone cannot resolve this challenge.
Keeping up with the pace of digital culture also requires replacing quarterly risk assessments with continuous monitoring systems that can track counterfeit activity, social media patterns and regulatory signals in real time. This creates awareness models that enable action before threats escalate. This often requires investing in technology which rapidly identifies counterfeit products is a great defence to unregulated products reaching patients, with AI-powered social media monitoring tools able to detect fraudulent listings before they go viral.
Additionally, restructuring your operating model and implementing a dual operating system that combines traditional hierarchical structures with agile, network-based approaches, enables adaptation while maintaining stability. The hierarchy manages routine operations and daily tasks, while the network functions as a flexible "adaptive system" capable of responding to emerging threats. This structure, designed purposefully for facing emerging threats, empowers individuals to step forward and volunteer, ensuring hierarchy provides support while the network drives strategic initiatives.
Siloed organisations will struggle to act with the necessary speed, as employees primarily communicate with and only trust their own business units. Therefore, effectively addressing volatility requires alignment across all organisational departments and levels. Breaking down these barriers to allow them to function as a unified force involves creating "guiding coalitions" which are composed of employees from various divisions, empowering them to identify
opportunities, surface ideas, and participate in rapid-response teams. This mobilises the organisation as a movement rather than a mandate, thereby accelerating change.
Leading through volatility
The Retatrutide counterfeit crisis is a clear reflection of pharmaceutical leadership challenges in a digital era. When innovation achieves viral status before regulatory approval and when social platforms amplify demand among vulnerable populations, leaders must move beyond organisational boundaries and traditional processes to build governance systems that operate as close to this digital-first culture’s speed as possible.
Those organisations who will lead in this space will recognise the need to balance immediate challenge resolution whilst building foundational adaptability, ensuring they are prepared for a diverse range of external disruption.