Obesity GLP-1 prescribing climbs sharply after Wegovy tablet debut

Key takeaways:

Oral semaglutide has seen rapid early uptake since it was first introduced at the start of 2026.
It has led to a significant increase in overall prescriptions for GLP-1s for weight loss.

A new study finds that oral semaglutide was adopted quickly after its launch at the beginning of 2026, while total prescriptions for weight-loss GLP-1 drugs — including both injectable and oral forms — rose sharply over the course of the year.

GLP-1 receptor agonists have become widely used for obesity as well as cardiovascular, kidney and metabolic conditions. Until recently, however, the weight-loss version was available only as an injection. As Healio previously reported, oral semaglutide (Wegovy pill, Novo Nordisk) became the first oral GLP-1 approved by the FDA for obesity at the end of 2025 and reached the market at the start of 2026.

“The oral version of Wegovy is super attractive to have in our armamentarium just to give patients more options,” Michael Blaha, MD, a co-author of the new Johns Hopkins study, told Healio. “A lot of patients enjoy and do well on injectables, but there are certain patients who don’t do as well or don’t prefer to be on injectables, and it’s just wonderful to have another option.”

Blaha said oral semaglutide appears to offer similar effectiveness and a similar side-effect profile to the injectable version, describing it as “another entrant into the market.”

Blaha and colleagues reviewed national prescription data for oral semaglutide, injectable semaglutide and injectable tirzepatide (Zepbound, Lilly) from July 2020 through June 2026 to assess how the arrival of oral semaglutide influenced overall GLP-1 prescribing.

The researchers found that the pill’s market entry was associated with a rapid rise in total GLP-1 prescriptions for weight loss. In its first two months, oral semaglutide exceeded 100,000 prescriptions and was adopted more quickly than injectable semaglutide and injectable tirzepatide. Even after the pill became available, prescriptions for the injectable products continued to increase.

Blaha and his team wanted to know whether oral semaglutide would expand the overall pool of GLP-1 users or simply shift patients away from existing injectable therapies. Their findings pointed strongly to the former.

“It seems to point to the fact that the uptake was very rapid, sustained and almost exclusively seemed to be growing the pie rather than taking away from injectable semaglutide or injectable tirzepatide,” Blaha said.

Researchers said several factors may be behind the increase in prescriptions this year. An oral option gives patients who dislike injections another way to take the drug. The study also notes growing acceptance of weight-loss medications. Cost, marketing and product availability may also have contributed to the uptake.

“It reaches patients who wouldn’t have taken a weight loss medicine otherwise, it seems,” Blaha added. “Introducing a new mode of delivery seemed to be growing the amount of patients who are benefiting from incretin-based therapies.”

The team also examined whether oral semaglutide’s arrival affected use of oral and injectable semaglutide and injectable tirzepatide for diabetes, but it found no meaningful change.