• Posted September 24, 2025

Ozempic Pill Effective For Weight Loss

A pill form of the blockbuster weight-loss drug Ozempic can help overweight or obese folks shed excess pounds, a new clinical trial has concluded.

People who took a daily semaglutide pill lost nearly 14% of their body weight over 64 weeks, compared with just 2% of those given a placebo, researchers reported recently in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Semaglutide is the main ingredient in the GLP-1 drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.

“The 25-mg dose resulted in substantial weight loss with a safety profile consistent with that of the GLP-1 class of medications,” wrote the research team led by Dr. Sean Wharton, director of the Wharton Medical Clinic in Ontario, Canada.

“Oral semaglutide 25 mg builds on the proven efficacy and established safety and tolerability profile of semaglutide and represents a significant advancement in obesity treatment,” Wharton said in a news release.

“People with overweight or obesity have individual preferences, and with oral semaglutide as a potential new treatment option, more of those who are not on treatment today may consider starting GLP-1 treatment,” he added.

The new results come on the heels of positive clinical trial results last week for another GLP-1 pill under development, the drug orforgliprion being developed by Eli Lilly and Company.

Orforgliprion caused an average 11% weight loss among overweight and obese people after a year and a half, researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. It also outperformed a lower-dose semaglutide pill already approved for treatment of diabetes.

“We all knew this was coming and we all feel that it could potentially be a game changer in terms of adopting these GLP-1s across the board," Dr. Armando Castro-Tié, senior vice president and physician executive of Northwell Health's Eastern Region, said in a news release of the semaglutide pill. Castro was not involved in the trial.

For the latest trial, 205 people were randomly assigned to take semaglutide tablets and 102 to receive a placebo.

In all, 63% more of those taking semaglutide had lost at least 10% of their body weight by week 64, compared with 14% of those on placebo, results show.

Likewise, 50% of semaglutide patients had lost 15% or more of body weight and nearly 30% had lost 20% or more, compared with 6% and 3% of placebo patients.

"The side effect profile was pretty similar compared to the injectable forms, as well as to the higher-dose of the oral form,” Castro-Tié said. “Side effects were gastrointestinal stuff — nausea, some dyspepsia — and those we do see with the injectable form as well.”

However, the injectable form is faster-acting, he said. 

“And so sometimes the patients would have those side effects a little bit sooner and they would dissipate more quickly than with the oral form," Castro-Tié said.

The drug’s maker, Novo Nordisk, said the results for semaglutide pills were even better if patients took the tablets as directed, reducing weight by just under 17% compared to 3% for placebo.

Overall, about 34% of patients adhering to treatment lost 20% or more of their body weight, versus about 3% of those on placebo, the company said.

“Currently, less than 2% of individuals with obesity in the U.S. receive obesity medication and Wegovy in a pill may also address patient preference for oral treatment,” Martin Holst Lange, chief scientific officer and executive vice president of research & development at Novo Nordisk, said in a news release.

“Pending [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] approval, ample supply will be available to meet the expected U.S. demand as we hope to set a new treatment benchmark for oral weight loss medications for people with overweight or obesity,” he added.

Novo Nordisk funded the clinical trial.

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more on GLP-1 drugs.

SOURCES: Novo Nordisk, news release, Sept. 17, 2025; Northwell Health, news release, Sept. 18, 2025; New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 18, 2025