People turning to injectable GLP-1 treatment—a class of drugs that mimic this hormone to control diabetes and promote weight loss—now have another way to take the medication.
December 22 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Veg tablets from Novo Nordisk. The tablet will contain 25mg of semaglutide – the same compound found in the injectable version of Wegovy – to treat overweight or obesity for both people using the tablet to start a weight loss program and those using it to maintain weight loss. People prescribed the pill will take one per day. (By comparison, people using the pen version of the drug inject themselves once a week.)
“I'm very excited to bring the pill to market because I realized that so many people need weight loss right now but are still not making progress. [medications like Wegovy] “They want to swallow the pill so they won't be judged if someone sees them injecting themselves.” [a medication]. We waited and waited to make sure that when the pill came out, it would be the right one and the most effective one.”
In studies the company submitted to the FDA, people who took daily Wegovy pills lost about the same amount of weight—about 16.6% of their body weight—as those who gave themselves weekly Wegovy injections for just over a year.
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Safe and effective diet pills have become the Holy Grail for pharmaceutical companies. One of the main challenges in its development is that the drugs often have difficulty withstanding harsh stomach acids. “The new pill incorporates proprietary technology used by Novo Nordisk to temporarily alter the specific area of the stomach where the pill goes and prevent it from being broken down too quickly by digestive enzymes,” says Andrea Traina, medical director of Novo Nordisk. “This results in bioavailability of Wegovy daily tablets with efficacy and safety that matches what we see with the injectable form of Wegovy,” she says. “At the end of the week, the average exposure levels of the two formulations are the same.”
The Wegovy tablet is not the first oral GLP-1 tablet released by Novo Nordisk. Ribelsus is a semaglutide tablet approved by the FDA in 2019 for the treatment of diabetes. Dustdar says Rybelsus and Wegovy tablets will differ in dosage and treatment conditions. The Wegogy tablet contains approximately twice the dose of Rybelsus, which studies have shown is necessary to achieve significant weight loss.
Because both the injection and tablet versions of Wegovy contain the same main ingredient, semaglutide, the tablet's label also states that it may reduce the risk of heart disease.
Wegovy tablet is the first oral GLP-1 tablet approved by the FDA for the treatment of obesity. December 18, Novo Nordisk competitor Eli Lilly filed FDA request for approval of GLP-1 tablet, orforglipronto help people maintain weight loss after completing a one-year series of injectable GLP-1 use. In November Lilly received Commissioner's Priority Voucher, which means the drug review process can be cut from months to weeks.
Both Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have teamed up with the White House to make GLP-1 drugs, including pills, more affordable. Maintenance doses of the pills will cost $149 for a month's supply for people who don't have insurance or get them through government programs.
Novo Nordisk plans to launch the Wegovy tablet in January.
