Wegovy Pill Will Be Available Early Next Year

A pill form of the popular weight-loss medication, Wegovy, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and is expected to be available early next year, its manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, announced.

Until now, Wegovy has only been available in injectable form, taken once a week. But as Novo Nordisk explained in a statement, the daily pill is as effective as the shots, with participants losing, on average, 17% of their body weight — alongside a reduced-calorie diet and exercise.

Simply called the Wegovy pill, it contains 25 mg of semaglutide — much more than the injectable. The reason for this, The New York Times explains, is that less of the medication is absorbed orally versus when it’s injected. The pill is approved for weight loss, weight maintenance, and to reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke in patients with cardiovascular disease.

Semaglutide — marketed by Novo Nordisk under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy — is a type of GLP-1 medication (glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists) that works in the brain to impact satiety. Ozempic is FDA-approved to treat type 2 diabetes, while Wegovy is FDA-approved for weight-loss management.

“The pill is here. With today’s approval of the Wegovy pill, patients will have a convenient, once-daily pill that can help them lose as much weight as the original Wegovy injection,” Mike Doustdar, president and CEO of Novo Nordisk said in the release. “As the first oral GLP-1 treatment for people living with overweight or obesity, the Wegovy pill provides patients with a new, convenient treatment option that can help patients start or continue their weight loss journey. No other current oral GLP-1 treatment can match the weight loss delivered by the Wegovy pill, and we are very excited for what this will mean for patients in the US.”

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The initial dose is expected to cost $149 for the first month, The Washington Post reports; prices for other doses have yet to be announced.

Novo Nordisk also recently announced a discount for people who want the injectable version of semaglutide and plan to pay out of pocket. Under that offer, new patients with prescriptions can get the first two doses of Wegovy and Ozempic for $199. Existing patients will see their medication costs lowered from $499 to $349 per month. The discount, active now, applies to the two lowest doses of the medication and is set to expire at the end of March.