Jordan’s Food and Drug Administration recently warned against the circulation of unlicensed products promoted through social media and some fitness centres. Among them were products sold under the name retatrutide, a compound that is still in development and has not yet been approved for marketing as a medicine.

 

More importantly, the phenomenon did not begin with the Jordanian warning. In December 2024, the US Food and Drug Administration took action against entities offering products under the retatrutide name, even though retatrutide had not been approved. Warnings and seizures continued in other markets during 2025, and similar signals persisted into 2026. In June, Australia warned about unapproved peptide products, including substances that later appeared in the Jordanian warning. Then, in August, it announced seizures of products in the same category linked to online importation and sales. This sequence of events does not mean that the products found in those markets were connected to those that reached Jordan.

 

The situation is further complicated by the fact that some products are marketed under the names of compounds that are still in development and have not yet been approved for marketing as medicines. The name on the label alone does not prove what the product actually contains. It may contain the stated substance but have been illicitly manufactured; the substance may be present at a different concentration, mixed with other substances or impurities, or absent altogether. This is the paradox: a market may begin to form before the approved product itself exists.

 

Regulatory attention therefore begins before the market itself appears.

 

This approach could be described as a “pre-authorisation radar”: selective monitoring of a limited and changing group of pharmaceutical compounds that are still in development and have not yet received marketing authorisation. Monitoring would begin when a compound’s intended use, or the attention it attracts, suggests that its name could be commercially exploited before approval. A compound associated with weight loss, a therapeutic need attracting broad interest, or striking clinical results that draw public attention may, for example, warrant early monitoring.

 

Such a radar would allow the pharmaceutical regulator to begin collecting information on these compounds at an early stage — from domestic monitoring, the developer and international channels — rather than waiting for sales offers to appear or for products carrying their names to be seized. The available information can then guide two interconnected tracks. The first is digital monitoring for products or offers carrying the names of these compounds. The second is heightened attention at the border to related products or shipments. The two tracks should feed into each other: online findings should guide border scrutiny, while border findings should redirect digital monitoring. If sales offers later emerge, regulators in other countries issue warnings or report seizures, or the developer submits reports, those developments indicate a higher level of risk. Monitoring, however, begins before these signals appear.

 

Information on these compounds should not remain confined within a single country. Existing channels include the World Health Organization’s Global Surveillance and Monitoring System (GSMS) and rapid-alert channels within PIC/S, which allow competent authorities to exchange some regulatory information and alerts. The developer can also be an important source of information.

 

This is where the value of early monitoring becomes clear. If the name of a compound already being followed by the radar starts appearing in online offers or on products at the border, regulators can intensify scrutiny before the sales and distribution network around it expands.

 

Once the market has already formed, however, the problem may extend far beyond a page or an account. Documented cases and regulatory actions show that sales may be linked to a wider chain involving suppliers, importation, shipping, payment and distribution points outside pharmacies. Closing the visible storefront remains important, but it cannot by itself answer another question: has the structure that allows the market to return actually been weakened?

 

The figures announced by the Jordanian regulator therefore take on broader meaning. Closing more than ten pages and six centres does more than shut down visible sales channels; the information these actions reveal about suppliers, product sources and distribution channels can be turned into regulatory intelligence that informs subsequent monitoring and redirects what regulators look for in future cases.

 

The Jordanian warning thus opens a window onto an issue broader than the products it identified. The value of monitoring begins before the market itself takes shape: by identifying compounds in development that are most likely to attract consumer interest or be commercially exploited; then detecting signs that an unregulated market is beginning to form around them before the product appears locally; linking digital signals with findings from border controls and enforcement actions; and using each case to make it harder for the market to re-emerge and to detect the next case faster.