A capsule type of Wegovy, the favored weight problems drug beforehand obtainable solely by injection, is now being stocked by pharmacies.
Novo Nordisk
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Novo Nordisk
The Wegovy capsule launched Monday, and the beginning dose is now obtainable at pharmacies across the nation with larger doses arriving by the tip of the week.
The Meals and Drug Administration authorised the capsule for weight problems on Dec. 22. It is also authorised to cut back the chance of coronary heart assault and stroke in sufferers who’re overweight or chubby.
The capsule follows the blockbuster success of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy injection, which has been available on the market since 2021 and have become so fashionable that it was in brief provide till February 2025.
The capsule model of the drug helped sufferers lose about as a lot weight because the injection. In a examine revealed within the New England Journal of Drugs, a 25 milligram Wegovy capsule led to a 13.6% discount in weight on common over 64 weeks. Sufferers taking a placebo within the examine misplaced 2.2% of their weight. For sufferers who stayed on the therapy, decreased their calorie consumption and exercised, Novo Nordisk estimates they’d have a 16.6% discount of their weight.
Nevertheless, sufferers have to take the Wegovy capsule on an empty abdomen and wait a half hour earlier than consuming anything for the medication to be correctly absorbed. The commonest unwanted side effects with the Wegovy capsule are just like the injection and embrace nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.
When Novo Nordisk introduced its drug-pricing cope with the Trump administration in November, it promised to make the weight problems capsule obtainable for $149 a month to sufferers not utilizing their medical health insurance. Nevertheless, that is solely the beginning dose for the direct-to-consumer worth. The upper doses can be obtainable for $299 a month.
The worth that impacts insurance coverage protection, known as an inventory worth, is identical because the Wegovy injection: $1,349 a month.
Insurance coverage protection for weight problems medicine grew to become extra restrictive in 2025, in keeping with an evaluation from GoodRx, an internet site that helps sufferers discover reductions on prescribed drugs. However Novo Nordisk says sufferers with insurance coverage protection can get the Wegovy capsule for as little as $25 a month.
Though the Wegovy capsule is the primary of its type to win FDA approval, Novo Nordisk’s Sort 2 diabetes capsule, Rybelsus, is already available on the market. It accommodates the identical lively ingredient, semaglutide, however the doses are completely different.
Eli Lilly, which makes the Zepbound injection, utilized to the FDA in late 2025 for approval of its competing weight problems capsule. The company gave the corporate a voucher for a precedence evaluate and a choice might come early this 12 months.
