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Novo Nordisk Says Patients Who Switched From Obesity Shots to Wegovy Pill Kept Losing Weight

New real-world data from Novo Nordisk show patients who moved from obesity injections to its oral Wegovy lost about 4% more body weight after three months, as the company also reported fresh CagriSema findings.

AI News Feed · 2026-09-30 19:39

The analysis drew on 194 patients with obesity or who were overweight on the telehealth platform Ro. Those who moved from an injection to oral Wegovy and stayed on treatment for three months lost roughly 4% of their body weight, an additional 8.8 pounds on average. Novo said the figure is based on an average starting weight of about 221 pounds before patients began taking the pill. About 56% of the participants were female, and half had started on Novo's Wegovy injection while the rest initially took Eli Lilly's rival shot Zepbound.

Two in five of the participants achieved 5% or more weight loss three months after switching to the pill. The share of patients with a body mass index at or above 30 fell by more than 21%. A BMI of 30 is the threshold at which a person moves from the overweight category into obesity.

Novo said about 82% of patients with available data reported at least one improvement during treatment with the pill, including almost 70% who said their clothes fit better and roughly 51% who said they had pursued healthier eating. Around 75% said they were satisfied with the switch to a pill.

Real-world studies evaluate associations and cannot determine causality. Novo also listed limitations: the timing and completeness of data collected during routine telehealth care varied, self-reported data can be subject to bias, and the results are "not generalizable to the broader population."

"We have the unique benefit that, in the market, the subcutaneous Wegovy can now be interchanged with a tablet of Wegovy, and the patient can expect the same tolerability profile, the same safety profile, and actually a little bit more weight loss, which is what a lot of them want," Martin Holst Lange, Novo's chief scientific officer, said in an interview with CNBC.

Lange said the company's view of patient preference has shifted. "Maybe just a year ago, we actually thought that the vast majority of patients who wanted treatment for obesity were happy with a subcutaneous treatment," he said. "We see that picture differently now. We clearly see a preference for orals." He pointed to people who travel frequently and do not want to think about refrigerating their injections.

The results suggest that patients may not need to take weekly shots such as Wegovy and Zepbound indefinitely and could instead opt for a more convenient treatment. They also suggest the Wegovy pill may improve on the initial weight loss people experience on injections rather than simply maintain it.

Separately on Wednesday, Novo said its experimental next-generation obesity drug CagriSema reduced "food noise" — persistent thoughts about food — and showed benefits for organ and bone health. That finding is based on a yearlong functional magnetic resonance imaging study, a noninvasive method for measuring brain activity during specific tasks. CagriSema combines semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy, with cagrilintide, a drug that targets amylin.

Novo said CagriSema changed how the brains of people with obesity or who were overweight reacted to tempting, high-calorie foods in areas linked to cravings, pleasure and self-control. "The signal in the brain changes in a way that actually is associated with improved quality of life," Lange said.

The company added that the drug reduced harmful fat around abdominal organs, including the liver and pancreas, in adults with Type 2 diabetes, and that early findings suggest patients' bone health was maintained despite substantial weight loss. Novo said the findings suggest CagriSema may address underlying factors of obesity and diabetes in the brain and in multiple organs and tissues, rather than only affecting weight and blood sugar levels.

CagriSema is expected to launch early next year, followed by standalone cagrilintide and a higher-dose version of CagriSema in 2028, the company said. The datasets are among several Novo is unveiling this week on its obesity and diabetes pipeline at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Milan, Italy.