Wegovy Tablets

Description

What is the Wegovy tablet? 

The Wegovy tablet contains semaglutide, the same clinically proven active ingredient as the Wegovy injection. Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, meaning it mimics a hormone the body naturally produces after eating to signal fullness and reduce appetite. Instead of a weekly injection, patients simply take a tablet each morning, with the dose gradually increasing up to a maximum of 25mg daily. 

In clinical trials, patients taking oral semaglutide lost an average of 17% of their body weight over 71 weeks, with 1 in 4 participants losing 20% or more. These results closely rival the Wegovy injection, which produced approximately 21% average weight loss in comparable studies, making Wegovy weight loss pills one of the most effective oral weight loss pills ever brought to market. 

How does the Wegovy tablet work?

When you eat, your intestines release a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1. It binds to GLP-1 receptors and sends signals to your brain that suppress appetite, slow how quickly your stomach empties, and increase insulin when your blood sugar rises.

That means people taking it may:

• Feel fuller for longer
• Have fewer cravings through the day

In short, GLP-1 is your body’s natural way of knowing when to stop eating and of managing blood sugar. In people living with obesity this system is often weaker — GLP-1 levels can be lower and the feeling of fullness harder to reach. Research in Diabetes Care has shown GLP-1 plays an important role in appetite and weight regulation, which is why medicines that copy it have been developed for weight loss.

Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy tablets, works in the same way as natural GLP-1 but is designed to last longer in the body. It reduces appetite, slows how quickly food leaves the stomach, and supports better blood sugar control. In the STEP 1 trial, injectable semaglutide produced an average weight loss of 20% over 68 weeks in adults with obesity.

Why is it a tablet and not an injection?

Semaglutide is normally hard to take orally, because stomach acid and digestive enzymes break it down before your body can absorb it. That’s why GLP-1 treatments have traditionally been injected, so the the medicine bypasses the digestive system.

The tablet gets around this with a helper ingredient called SNAC, which protects semaglutide long enough to be absorbed through the stomach lining. The same technology was first used in Rybelsus, an oral semaglutide tablet for type 2 diabetes, and has since been developed at higher doses for weight loss. Because less semaglutide is absorbed from a tablet than an injection, the oral doses are higher: the tablet goes up to 25mg daily, whereas the injection goes up to 7.2mg weekly, with the aim of delivering a similar effect. In the OASIS 25mg trial, oral semaglutide gave average weight loss of around 14% over 71 weeks, with about 1 in 4 people losing 20% or more of their starting weight.