USA food and the Drug Administration today approved a pill version of Wegovy’s blockbuster anti-obesity drug. Produced by Novo Nordisk, the pill is taken once a day. The company’s original version of Wegova is a weekly injection. Both medicines contain the same vigorous substance – semaglutide.
“This gives obese patients who want to lose weight the choice between a once-a-week injection or a daily tablet,” says Martin Holst Lange, scientific director at Novo Nordisk.
With the growing popularity of injectable GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, Novo Nordisk and other pharmaceutical companies are racing to develop effective versions of the pills that could be preferred for some patients. These medications mimic a naturally occurring hormone in the body that acts on the brain and gut to make you feel full.
IN clinical trial results published in the Fresh England Journal of Medicine, participants who took the pill achieved an average weight loss of 13.6 percent over 64 weeks. Nearly 30 percent of people lost 20 percent or more of their weight. The study also showed improvements in cardiovascular disease risk and physical activity levels, similar to the injectable version.
Although pills can sometimes be a more convenient option, patients don’t always take them as directed, making them less effective. Clinical trial investigators estimated that in an ideal scenario where participants took the pill every day as directed, weight loss would be 16.6%, which is similar to the results seen with Wegovy injectable.
Novo Nordisk first gained approval for oral semaglutide, sold under the brand name Rybelsus, in 2019 for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The drug has never been approved for the treatment of obesity and is not as effective for weight loss as newer GLP-1 drugs. The Wegovy pill is essentially a higher dose version of Rybselsus.
“The effectiveness of a weight loss pill at the end of the day depends on the dose. To achieve the full weight loss potential in obesity, higher doses are required,” says Lange. The Wegovy pill is 25 milligrams and Rybelsus is 14 milligrams.
The most common side effects of oral Wegova include nausea and vomiting, which are also side effects of the injectable version.
Novo says the starting dose of the pill, 1.5 milligrams, will be available in early January for $149 a month with savings offers. Production of the drug is already underway at Novo Nordisk’s U.S. manufacturing facilities and the company expects to have enough of the drug to meet U.S. demand.