The Weight-Loss Drug Wegovy Now Comes in a Pill

People turning to injectable GLP-1 treatments—a class of drugs that mimics that hormone to control diabetes and promote weight loss—now have another way to take the medication. On Dec. 22, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Wegovy pill from Novo Nordisk. The pill will contain 25 mg of semaglutide—the same compound in the injectable version of Wegovy—to treat overweight or obesity, either for people who use the pills to start a weight-loss program or for those who use them to maintain weight loss. People prescribed the pill will take one a day. (By comparison, people using the pen versions of the medication inject themselves once a week.) “I am excited to launch the pill because I’ve recognized that so many people right now are in need of weight loss but are still not going forward with [medications like Wegovy] because there is a taboo with injections,” Novo Nordisk’s CEO Mike Doustdar tells TIME. “They want to swallow a pill without being judged if someone sees them injecting [a medication]. We waited and waited to make sure that when the pill comes out, it’s the right one and the most efficacious one.” In the studies the company submitted to the FDA, people who took the daily Wegovy pill lost about the same amount of weight—around 16.6% of their body mass—as those who gave themselves weekly Wegovy injections for just over a year. Read More: How a Nobel-Winning Researcher Transformed Cancer Treatments With His Lifesaving Curiosity A safe and effective weight-loss pill has been a holy grail for pharmaceutical companies. One of the main challenges with developing one is that medicines often have a hard time surviving harsh stomach acids. The new pill incorporates proprietary technology used at Novo Nordisk to temporarily alter the specific area of the stomach where the pill lands and prevent it from getting degraded by the digestive enzymes too quickly, says Andrea Traina, medical director at Novo Nordisk. “That results in a bioavailability of the daily Wegovy pill with an efficacy and safety that is consistent with what we see with the injectable formulation of Wegovy,” she says. “At the end of the week, the average exposure levels of the two formulations are consistent.” Wegovy pill is not the first oral GLP-1 that Novo Nordisk has launched. Rybelsus is a semaglutide pill that the FDA approved in 2019 to treat diabetes. Doustdar says that Rybelsus and the Wegovy pill will differ in dose and in the conditions they treat. Wegogy pill contains about double the highest dose of Rybelsus, which is what studies showed is necessary to achieve a meaningful weight loss. Since both the injectable and pill versions of Wegovy contain the same main ingredient, semaglutide, the pill’s label also notes it can lower the risk of heart disease. Wegovy pill is the first oral GLP-1 approved by the FDA to treat obesity. On Dec. 18, Novo Nordisk’s competitor Eli Lilly submitted an FDA request for approval of its GLP-1 pill, orforglipron, to help people maintain weight loss after completing a year-long series of using an injectable GLP-1. In November, Lilly received a Commissioner’s Priority Voucher, which means the review process for the drug could be shortened from months to weeks. Both Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly joined with the White House to make GLP-1 drugs, including the pills, more affordable. The maintenance dose of the pills will cost $149 for a month’s supply for people who don’t use insurance or who obtain them through government programs. Novo Nordisk plans to launch the Wegovy pill in January.