Four adverts have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for promoting prescription-only weight loss pills to the public.

The four ads include two from Voy's “The weight is over” campaign, as well as those from Juniper and MedExpress for promoting oral weight-loss prescription-only medicines despite not naming them directly.

The first oral GLP-1 tablet for weight management was licensed as a prescription-only medicine in June.

Prescription-only medicines cannot be advertised to the public.

One ad for Voy, seen on the side of a bus in July, featured a hand holding a white pill alongside the headline “The weight is over…Voy”.

A second ad, shown on video-on-demand services in August, featured a pill alongside the wording “Oral weight support” and “It’s kind of a small deal”.

The Voy ad on a bus in Liverpool (Advertising Standards Authority)

Both ads included smaller text referring to a glucomannan food supplement.

The ASA said the imagery and wording in both ads were likely to lead…