What Forms of Semaglutide are Available?

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Semaglutide is a medication found under 3, and soon to be 4 different brand names, and if you’re planning on using it for weight loss, there are few things you should know about these different brands. Let’s talk about semaglutide and what you should know before taking it.

How does semaglutide work?

Semaglutide works by stimulating a hormone called GLP-1. This hormone does a lot of different things in our body, but the main two things we currently use it for are:

1. To stimulate the release of insulin, and
2. To make you feel full.

Stimulate insulin

Firstly, by stimulating the release of insulin, it allows your body to better use glucose in your bloodstream, and control blood sugar levels. This effect is what makes semaglutide a medication that’s useful for diabetics, or those with poor insulin control.

Suppress appetite

Secondly, by helping to stimulate parts of our brain and digestive system that are related to feeling full, it reduces the desire and appetite to eat. This appetite suppressive effect is what makes semaglutide also a medication that’s useful for weight loss.

There are other potentially interesting effects of stimulating GLP-1, such as protecting certain organs from chronic damage and disease, but these are too experimental to be useful at the moment.

Right now, there’s a lot of interest in how it can work as an appetite suppressant. Now it’s not the only drug that suppresses appetite by stimulating GLP-1, there are few others out there that have been around for much longer than semaglutide. However, one likely reason for its popularity, is how effective it seems to be for weight loss while being at least somewhat tolerable to take.

I’ve actually compared all the different GLP-1 medications in another article before.

Side effects

Some of the most common side effects from taking semaglutide are nausea, vomiting, and stool changes like diarrhea and constipation.

You see, semaglutide slows down your digestive system, and any food you eat takes longer to digest and break down. The result is that you won’t be able to eat as much or as quickly or else you’re going to get sick.

Some people also get headaches or dizziness.

Semaglutide has a number of potential serious side effects as well. It might cause thyroid cancers, or cause gallbladder or kidney damage. These types of side effects are pretty rare, however depending on your medical history, you might need to have your thyroid or kidney checked from time to time.

There exists multiple brands of semaglutide, all owned by Novo Nordisk, and you can expect that the weight loss approved brands of semaglutide will have more side effects than the diabetes brands, simply due to the increased doses.

So Wegovy, one of the weight loss brands of semaglutide, is going to have more side effects than Ozempic, which is one of the diabetes brands of semaglutide.

Different brands of semaglutide

There are currently 3 brands of semaglutide, however a 4th is in the works, and is in the final stages of testing, although it hasn’t been named yet.

There are no generics for semaglutide, so there aren’t going to be any other brands, and we likely won’t see any others on the market for a while since the patent on semaglutide won’t expire until around 2032.

The drug is exactly the same for all four brands, however, how they’re dosed are all different.

Semaglutide is dosed in a step-up fashion. This means that when you start semaglutide, you’ll be given a lower dose at first. Once you’ve taken that dose for a while and you don’t feel too bad, you’ll be given a slightly higher dose. This continues until you hit the maximum dosage.

They also have different approved uses. Now this doesn’t necessarily stop people from using it off-label for another purpose, however it does affect insurance coverage and the cost of the drug.

They’re all pretty expensive to start with, however when used for weight loss, semaglutide is dosed much higher, and costs much more. The higher cost sometimes drives patients who are trying to obtain semaglutide for weight loss to seek the cheaper alternative, even though it’s technically supposed to be used for diabetes.

This presents a problem for patients who are actually using semaglutide for diabetes, as the recent interest in semaglutide for weight loss has created supply shortages of this diabetic medication.

Oral vs Injectable Semaglutide

Semaglutide can be administered in two different ways: injected once a week under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic, which is typical of GLP-1 drugs, and as a pill once a day under the brand name Rybelsus, which is pretty unique, since it’s currently the only GLP-1 drug that can be taken as a pill.

Studies have shown that both oral and injectable forms are approximately equal in terms of strength, and mostly equal in terms of side effects, with the oral form perhaps being a little more tolerable. There also isn’t really a difference in cost if you’re talking about a monthly or yearly overall cost.

However, there are subtle differences based on patient preferences.

The pill form requires more vigilant dosing. You need to take it every day, on an empty stomach, with just a little bit of water, not too much, and at least 30 minutes before eating. That’s a lot of instructions, and if you don’t follow them correctly, you could reduce the effectiveness of the pill.

The injectable form is only taken once a week, at any time of the day, with or without meals. It’s easier to remember and less affected by whatever else you do, or forget to do. So for some people, injecting provides a more stable and reliable dose of semaglutide.

On the other end, the injectables require refrigeration, and you’ll need to deal with needles. So if you’re scared of needles or bruise easily, pills provide a pain-free way to get semaglutide.

How effective is semaglutide?

Regardless of how patients use semaglutide, it is one of our stronger medications to help with weight loss. When used with an ideal dietary and lifestyle plan, patients can expect around a 10-15% weight loss.

In my experience, it really depends on how committed the patient is to managing their eating habits, and many patients don’t end up losing that much, maybe closer to 5-10%. However, patients that are willing to implement a stricter dietary plan can lose upwards of 15%.

Semaglutide diet plan

There is no specific diet you need to follow with semaglutide, but by implementing a stricter dietary plan, the reduced appetite makes it easier to follow.

You can combine other appetite suppressing strategies such as having more protein and fat or consuming a soluble fiber supplement like glucomannan before your meals to help improve the effects of semaglutide.

But avoid extreme diets. Make sure your dietary plan has a good variety of macronutrients and micronutrients, for example by following a low-carbohydrate, calorie controlled Mediterranean Diet.

Proper nutrition is needed for proper fat metabolism, and inadvertently depriving yourself of these nutrients can make it harder for your body to metabolize fat, and actually slow your weight loss progress.

Should you try semaglutide?

At the end of the day, if you’re trying to lose weight, you’ll still need to follow a good weight loss diet, however it can make that diet easier to follow.

If you deal with emotional and stress eating, you’ll still need behavioral and lifestyle interventions to deal with those, however it can help reduce the food cravings.

Semaglutide is just a weight loss medication, not a miracle.

It should not, and will not fix your poor eating habits once and for all or manage your emotional eating for you.

Like other weight loss medications, the appetite controlling effect of semaglutide will wear off over time, with some patients reporting no more effects on appetite as quickly as within a few months of continual usage.

So I would say that semaglutide tends to be most effective when you first use it and hit your maximum dose, and becomes progressively weaker over time.

It’s very common for patients who don’t sufficiently develop good eating or living habits to regain weight once they’ve stopped their weight loss medication or once the medication has stopped working for them.

Weight loss is a complicated journey, and while I have no problems with using semaglutide as a supportive tool, you may find that you’ll get more long-term benefit from trying to improve your own dietary, behavioral, and lifestyle habits, rather than trying to find new weight loss medication to rely on.

Learn more about

• Wegovy, one of the semaglutide drugs
• Liraglutide, a closely related GLP-1 drug
• Comparing other GLP-1 Agonists for Weight Loss
• 5 Things To Know Before Starting Weight Loss Medication
• Other weight loss medications

See also

• 
  Comparing Weight Loss Drugs in 2024
  Ozempic and Mounjaro are highly effective at treating obesity, however there are many other approved and off-label options that also work.
• 
  Bupropion vs Contrave vs Naltrexone
  Contrave is a synergistic combination of buproprion and naltrexone, which can be replicated to some degree using the generics individually.
• 
  New Obesity Drugs in 2024
  New obesity drugs target more than just GLP-1 and do much more than suppress appetite for a more nuanced approach to weight loss.
• 
  Mounjaro: Who Loses the Most Weight?
  White or Asian younger women who use metformin and have lower sugar and lipid levels tend to experience more weight loss with Mounjaro.
• 
  How does Oforglipron compare?
  Orforglipron, Semaglutide, and Danuglipron are oral GLP-1 agonists that are all similar enough that cost may end up being the winning factor.