A growing number of South Koreans are traveling to Japan to buy the weight-loss drug Mounjaro at a lower cost.
Mounjaro sells in Japan for less than half the price charged in South Korea, according to Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi and the Sankei Shimbun on the 13th. With the yen weakening in recent months, posts on Korean social media have proliferated identifying Japanese hospitals and clinics where the drug can be prescribed relatively cheaply, describing them as pilgrimage sites.
Some travelers say they visit Japan for no other purpose than to obtain a prescription. A woman in her 30s living in Seoul told TV Asahi that she learned of a hospital in a provincial Japanese city that prescribes Mounjaro and found it to be the cheapest in the country. She said she saw no one her own age at the hospital but watched several middle-aged women receive prescriptions and leave.
Others argue the trip costs less than buying the drug at home, even including airfare. An office worker in his 30s who lives in Seoul made a day trip to Fukuoka with a friend in August and bought a four-month supply of Mounjaro there for about 850,000 won.
He told the Sankei Shimbun that the same purchase in Seoul would cost more than 1.7 million won at the lowest, and that even after factoring in about 350,000 won for a round-trip ticket, he cut his costs substantially.
The rise in such trips has also raised concerns that patients may struggle to receive proper medical supervision if side effects occur.
Mamiya Hiroaki, an associate professor at Ritsumeikan University's School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said medication is fundamentally something to be used with dosage adjusted in consultation with the prescribing physician. "But when someone buys it across a border and simply brings it home, the follow-up management is cut off for a time," he said. "That can become a risk factor when side effects occur."
Bringing the drug into South Korea can also create legal problems, because importing weight-loss drugs such as Mounjaro from abroad is restricted in principle.
Customs authorities recorded 4,155 cases of illegal imports of weight-loss drugs including Mounjaro and Wegovy in the first half of this year, according to the Korea Customs Service and other agencies. That is roughly 3.5 times the 1,189 cases detected during all of last year.
Authorities in Japan are also watching the increase in purchases by Koreans. The Sankei Shimbun noted that cases of people carrying the drug home without going through formal customs procedures are widespread, and warned that tighter customs inspections could eventually disrupt travel between the two countries for diabetes patients.
