CagriSema UK: Cagrilintide, Results & Availability

If you follow weight loss news, you've probably seen the headlines about CagriSema, Novo Nordisk's next big injection. It pairs a familiar medicine, semaglutide (the drug in Wegovy), with a newer one called cagrilintide. Together they pushed average weight loss past 20% in trials, and that number has had a lot of people asking the same thing: is this finally the one that beats Mounjaro?

The honest answer turns out to be more interesting than the hype. So here's what the trial data actually shows, how CagriSema and cagrilintide work, and where things stand for anyone in the UK wondering when, or whether, they'll be able to get it.

What is CagriSema?

CagriSema is a two-in-one weight loss injection from Novo Nordisk, the company behind Wegovy and Ozempic. It combines two different medicines in a single once-weekly jab: cagrilintide 2.4 mg and semaglutide 2.4 mg. The idea is simple enough. Take a drug that already works well, then add a second one that nudges appetite through a completely separate route, and you should get more weight loss than either could manage alone.

For now the word to hold onto is investigational. CagriSema has finished its main Phase 3 trials but hasn't been licensed by any regulator, which means no one can prescribe it yet, in the UK or anywhere else. What we have is a large body of trial evidence and a fair amount of speculation about when it might arrive.

What is cagrilintide?

Cagrilintide is the newer half of the pair, and it's the ingredient most people haven't heard of. It's a long-acting version of amylin, a hormone your pancreas releases alongside insulin every time you eat. Amylin helps tell your brain you've had enough, slows how quickly your stomach empties, and steadies blood sugar after a meal.

On its own, cagrilintide holds up surprisingly well. In a Phase 2 trial published in The Lancet, people with obesity lost around 10% of their body weight over 26 weeks on the highest dose. That's roughly in the same territory as older injectables, from a single hormone most patients have never encountered. Its real value, though, shows up when it's paired with semaglutide.

What is semaglutide?

Semaglutide is the familiar one. It's the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, and it belongs to a class called GLP-1 receptor agonists. It mimics GLP-1, a gut hormone that curbs appetite, slows digestion and helps regulate insulin. If you want the full picture of how this class works, we've covered it in our guide to how GLP-1s work.

The key point for CagriSema is that amylin and GLP-1 are two different hormones working on two different pathways in the brain. Combining them isn't just doubling up. It's hitting the appetite system from two angles at once.

How CagriSema works

Most weight loss injections available today pull one lever. Wegovy uses the GLP-1 pathway. Mounjaro adds a second gut hormone, GIP, to the same molecule. CagriSema takes a different tack, bolting an amylin analogue onto semaglutide so the two act together.

Why does that matter? Because appetite is stubborn. Your body has several overlapping systems designed to defend its weight, which is part of why so many people find that willpower alone stops working after a while. Semaglutide quietens one of those systems. Cagrilintide leans on another. In the main obesity trial, semaglutide alone produced about 15% weight loss and cagrilintide alone about 11%, while the two together reached roughly 20% (22.7% among those who stuck with it). The combination did more than either drug managed by itself, which is exactly what it was designed to do.

The two effects don't simply stack into a neat sum, but they reinforce each other, and for a lot of people that extra push is the difference between a good result and a life-changing one.

How is CagriSema taken?

In the trials, CagriSema was given as a single once-weekly injection under the skin of the abdomen, thigh, or upper arm, with both medicines combined in one prefilled pen. The dose wasn't started at full strength. Participants built up gradually over about 16 weeks, stepping up every four weeks until they reached the target of 2.4 mg of each drug, the same slow titration used for Wegovy.

That build-up matters more than it sounds. Raising the dose slowly is what keeps the early side effects manageable, and not everyone reaches the top dose. In the main trial, a fair share of people settled at a lower dose because that was what their body tolerated, and they still lost weight. If CagriSema reaches UK pharmacies, the exact schedule will be set by its licence, and the dose you'd actually be prescribed would be a decision for your clinician, not a fixed rule.

How much weight do people lose on CagriSema?

The headline evidence comes from REDEFINE 1, a 68-week trial of 3,417 adults with obesity or overweight who didn't have type 2 diabetes. Everyone was randomly assigned to CagriSema, semaglutide alone, cagrilintide alone, or a placebo.

The results, presented at the American Diabetes Association's 2025 meeting and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked like this:

A couple of things are worth pulling out. First, 40.4% of people on CagriSema lost at least a quarter of their body weight. That's a level of weight loss that used to belong only to surgery. Second, you'll notice two figures for CagriSema. Trials report an "average across everyone" number and an "average among those who stuck with it" number. Real life usually lands between the two, closer to the 20% mark.

CagriSema was also tested in people with type 2 diabetes, in a companion trial called REDEFINE 2. Here 1,206 adults lost an average of 13.7% of their body weight, rising to 15.7% among those who stayed on treatment, alongside a meaningful drop in their long-term blood sugar. Lower than the non-diabetes group, but that's expected. People with type 2 diabetes consistently lose a little less on these drugs, and 13% to 15% is still a strong result.

Is CagriSema better than Mounjaro?

This is the question everyone asks, and it's where the story gets more honest than the early headlines suggested. Novo Nordisk ran a trial, REDEFINE 4, that put CagriSema directly against Mounjaro (tirzepatide) at its top 15 mg dose. It was the first proper head-to-head, and the results announced in February 2026 weren't quite what Novo had hoped for.

Over 84 weeks, CagriSema produced 23.0% weight loss against 25.5% for Mounjaro among people who took their full course. The trial had been designed to prove CagriSema was at least as good as Mounjaro, and on that specific goal, it fell short. Mounjaro stayed ahead.

Here's how the three main injections compare, using each drug's own pivotal data:

So where does that leave things? CagriSema comfortably outperformed semaglutide, the drug in Wegovy, in the same trial. But in the one comparison that pitted it against Mounjaro, it came second. Both figures can be true at once. CagriSema looks like one of the most effective weight loss injections ever tested, and Mounjaro still holds the top spot for now. If you're weighing up the two medicines you can already get, our Wegovy vs Mounjaro comparison breaks down the practical differences.

A headline percentage isn't the whole story, either. Tolerability, cost, how a drug feels week to week, and whether you can stay on it matter just as much as the number in a press release.

CagriSema side effects and safety

CagriSema's side effect profile looks a lot like the GLP-1 injections already in use. The most common problems are gastrointestinal: nausea, constipation and vomiting, mostly mild to moderate, and mostly concentrated in the early weeks while the dose is being built up. In the trials, Novo Nordisk reported that most of these settled over time, which is the same pattern clinicians see with Wegovy and Mounjaro.

That early adjustment period is real, though, and it shapes who does well on these medicines. A share of people in the trials never reached the full maintenance dose, usually because the side effects were too much at higher levels. It's one reason the dose is raised slowly over several months rather than all at once, and one reason having a clinician to talk to during those first weeks makes such a difference.

Because CagriSema hasn't been licensed, its official list of cautions hasn't been published yet. Based on the wider GLP-1 and amylin classes, it's likely to be unsuitable for people with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer, and to need care in anyone with a history of pancreatitis or gallbladder problems. None of that is a reason to worry about a drug that isn't out yet. It's simply the kind of assessment any good service does before starting you on any injection of this type.

When will CagriSema be available in the UK?

Short version: not soon, and there's no firm UK date.

Novo Nordisk submitted CagriSema to the US Food and Drug Administration in December 2025, based on the REDEFINE 1 and 2 trials, with a decision expected in late 2026. As of mid-2026, the company hasn't publicly confirmed a submission to the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) or to European regulators. That doesn't mean nothing is happening behind the scenes, but nothing has been announced.

If CagriSema does follow the usual path, it helps to look at how Mounjaro and Wegovy got here. A medicine first needs MHRA approval to be prescribed privately. NHS access comes later, after the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) decides the NHS should fund it. Mounjaro, for instance, received its NICE recommendation (TA1026) in December 2024, with the wider NHS rollout for obesity starting in 2025. Wegovy went through the same process (TA875) a year earlier.

Put together, a UK private-pharmacy launch in late 2026 or 2027 is plausible if Novo Nordisk applies to the MHRA in the coming months, with NHS availability arriving later still. Novo Nordisk is also still testing the drug's ceiling: a further trial (REDEFINE 11) is due to report in the first half of 2027, and a higher-dose version pairing 2.4 mg of cagrilintide with 7.2 mg of semaglutide is set to begin later in 2026. So the version that eventually reaches patients may not be the exact one making headlines now. Until then, CagriSema simply isn't a legitimate option in the UK.

One warning worth stating plainly. You may see "cagrilintide" sold online as a research peptide, sometimes for the price of a takeaway. These are not licensed medicines, they aren't quality-controlled for human use, and injecting them is a serious health risk. The only safe way to use a drug like this is once it's approved and prescribed by a regulated clinician.

You don't have to wait for CagriSema to get started, though, because effective licensed treatments already exist. If you're trying to work out what's realistic for you right now, our overview of weight loss medication options in the UK and the NHS eligibility criteria for Mounjaro and Wegovy are good places to start.

Who might CagriSema suit?

This part is speculative, because a drug can't have an official "right patient" until it's licensed. But based on how it performed and how similar medicines are used, a few groups stand out.

People who haven't reached their goal on Wegovy are the obvious ones. CagriSema clearly outperformed semaglutide alone in the same trial, so for someone whose progress has stalled on Wegovy, a second appetite pathway could be the extra help they need. People with type 2 diabetes are another group, given CagriSema's dual effect on weight and blood sugar.

There's a flip side worth being honest about. Because CagriSema's side effects look so much like Mounjaro's, anyone who struggled to tolerate Mounjaro may well struggle with CagriSema too. A different drug isn't automatically a gentler one.

And CagriSema isn't the only new name on the horizon. Eli Lilly's retatrutide targets three hormones at once and has posted some of the highest trial numbers yet, while survodutide is another combination drug working its way through trials. The next few years are going to bring more options, not fewer, which is good news for anyone who hasn't found their fit.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before starting any treatment.