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Is the new Wegovy pill more effective than other GLP-1s?
Medically reviewed by
Alexandra Cristina Cowell, Writer & Clinical Content Reviewer
This is because injection treatments deliver the medication straight into your bloodstream, whereas oral medications need to be broken down in your digestive system. This often means that when you use an injectable medication, more of the drug circulates through your body, making it a more effective ‘pound for pound’ medication.
Is the Wegovy pill the most effective weight loss pill?
If you’re specifically looking to use a pill (and not an injection), then yes, oral Wegovy will be the most effective option for you. Let’s see how it stacks up against other weight loss pills:
Oral weight loss treatments, compared.
There’s also another weight loss pill being developed called Orforglipron. Like oral Wegovy, Orforglipron is also a once-daily GLP-1 agonist, but unlike Wegovy, which is protein-based, it’s a non-peptide medication. This difference in chemical structure means Orforglipron is more easily absorbed in the body. So while oral semaglutide (the existing Rybelsus pill and upcoming Wegovy pill) needs to be taken on an empty stomach with a small, specific amount of water, Orforglipron will likely be licensed to be taken at any time of day, with or without food.
In terms of weight loss results, clinical trial participants taking Orforglipron lost an average of 11.2% of their body weight over 72 weeks, versus 13.6% average weight loss after 64 weeks with the Wegovy pill. So based on this existing data, the Wegovy pill might be slightly more effective than Orforglipron.
So to sum up:
- Current trial data shows oral Wegovy to be the most effective weight loss pill, beating both existing oral weight loss options and the still-under-development Orforglipron.
- Orgorglipron might be a more convenient option, because the conditions for taking it are less strict. This might make it more effective under ‘real life’ conditions.
Why is the Wegovy pill a higher dose than the injection?
In short, because more of the drug is able to enter your bloodstream when you inject it versus when you swallow it. When you take a pill, your body has to work harder to use it. It travels through your stomach and liver first, which breaks down some of the medication before it even reaches your blood. Because injection treatments bypass your digestive system and liver, you don’t need to inject as much of them to get the same effect.
So why take a pill?
With any systemic drug, the goal is for it to enter the bloodstream so it can influence how your body functions and behaves. And there are many different ways to do this, such as:
- Swallowing a pill or a liquid
- Inhaling a gas (like with asthma inhalers)
- Absorbing through a cream or a patch (like with HRT or nicotine)
- Injecting (either directly into a vein, or into a muscle or the fatty tissue just beneath the skin)
Each of these methods affects how much of the drug enters your blood, how quickly it’s absorbed, and what kind of side effects you might get. So when you swallow a pill, for example, it often takes a short while to enter your bloodstream (since you need to wait for your digestive system to break it down and process it). Whereas when a treatment is injected, it bypasses this, making its effect much more immediate and leaving more of the drug intact.
However, there are potential drawbacks with injectable medications that you don’t get with certain other methods. These include:
- injection site reactions or tissue damage;
- practical considerations like transportation and cost (injections use more components than oral medications, so can cost more to make and purchase); and:
- the need for technical skill or coaching to use and dispose of them correctly.
On the other hand, taking a pill can cause digestive side effects like acid reflux or nausea, and patches come with a risk of falling off or causing irritation.
As a result of all this, pharmaceutical companies try to develop medicines that will benefit you in the most suitable way all-round, including cost, ease of use, safety, and how best to treat your specific condition.
So while Wegovy pills need to be taken more often than injections to get the same effect, they can also be cheaper to produce, easier to use, and well-suited for those who don’t like needles.
How to get the best from the Wegovy pill
Take it first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, with a small amount of water (around 100ml). You should then wait at least 30 minutes before having any food or drink, or taking any other oral medications.
You should also swallow your pill whole (don’t crush or chew it).
How does the new Wegovy pill compare to other GLP-1s on the market?
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Wharton, S., et al. (2025).
Oral Semaglutide at a Dose of 25 mg in Adults with Overweight or Obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, 393(11), pp.1077–1087.
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Wharton, S., et al. (2025).
Orforglipron, an Oral Small-Molecule GLP-1 Receptor Agonist for Obesity Treatment. New England Journal of Medicine.
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Wilding, J.P.H., Batterham, R.L. and Calanna, S. (2021).
Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adults with Overweight or Obesity. The New England Journal of Medicine, 384(11), pp.989–1002.
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Jastreboff, A.M., et al. (2022).
Tirzepatide Once Weekly for the Treatment of Obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, 387(3), pp.205–216.
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Pi-Sunyer, X., et al. (2015).
A Randomized, Controlled Trial of 3.0 mg of Liraglutide in Weight Management. New England Journal of Medicine, 373(1), pp.11–22.
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Semaglutide. PubMed.
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