Search cagrilintide benefits and the first number you meet is 20.4%. That figure was produced by two drugs given together. Cagrilintide on its own has one Phase 2 trial behind it, and it read 9.7%.
The short answer. Cagrilintide alone has one Phase 2 trial: 26 weeks, 9.7% body weight reduction.
- The 20.4% figure everyone quotes is CagriSema, which is cagrilintide plus semaglutide.
- The highest-dose monotherapy arm reached about 11%. That is the ceiling in the published record.
- Muscle sparing, cardiovascular benefit and long-term maintenance have not been measured for cagrilintide alone.
Cagrilintide is a weekly amylin analog. Alone, it cut body weight 9.7% in Phase 2. That trial ran 26 weeks. Most benefit lists quote 20.4% instead. That number is CagriSema, which adds semaglutide. Neither is FDA-approved as of May 2026.
What cagrilintide alone has actually been shown to do
Cagrilintide is a synthetic, long-acting version of amylin. Amylin is a hormone the pancreas releases alongside insulin when you eat. A fatty-acid tail slows the molecule down, which is what allows once-weekly injection under the skin. The cagrilintide complete guide covers the chemistry.
The monotherapy record is small. It is one Phase 2 dose-finding trial, published in The Lancet in 2021 by Lau and colleagues. It ran 26 weeks in adults with overweight or obesity. It was placebo-controlled and it also carried an active comparator arm, which is unusual and good.
Body weight fell 9.7%. The highest-dose arm reached about 11%. Those are the numbers that belong to cagrilintide by itself.
Treatment with once-weekly cagrilintide led to significant reductions in bodyweight and was well tolerated, supporting further clinical development.
Lau et al., The Lancet, 2021- What it established. Weekly dosing works. Weight came down against placebo over half a year.
- What it did not establish. Anything past 26 weeks. Phase 2 is a dose-finding exercise, not an outcomes trial.
- What it never tested. Heart events, joint pain, sleep apnea, or any of the outcomes vendors attach to weight loss drugs.
Why most cagrilintide benefit lists are really CagriSema lists
Combine cagrilintide with semaglutide and you get CagriSema. That combination went to Phase 3. REDEFINE-1, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2025 by Garvey and colleagues, ran 68 weeks and reported 20.4% body weight reduction.
A second trial, Davies and colleagues in the same journal, tested cagrilintide-semaglutide in adults with overweight or obesity and type 2 diabetes. That is a different population. Its numbers are not interchangeable with REDEFINE-1's.
If a benefit list opens with 20.4%, it is describing two molecules. Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist with its own Phase 3 program. Cagrilintide is the amylin half. Only the combination produced that figure.
This is the honest split. Cagrilintide contributes. Nobody has shown that cagrilintide alone reaches anywhere near the combination number, and the one trial that measured it alone landed at less than half.
Which benefit belongs to which ingredient
Here is the same evidence laid out by what was actually in the syringe.
| What was given | Trial | Reported weight change |
|---|---|---|
| Cagrilintide alone | Phase 2, 26 weeks (Lau, 2021) | 9.7%, up to about 11% in the top arm |
| Cagrilintide + semaglutide | REDEFINE-1, 68 weeks (Garvey, 2025) | 20.4% |
| Cagrilintide + semaglutide, type 2 diabetes | Davies, 2025 | Reported separately; different population |
| Cagrilintide in a research vial | None | Zero trials of material sold for research use |
The bottom row matters as much as the top one. Every figure above came from pharmaceutical-grade drug product made under a sponsor's controls, not from a vial bought online.
Cagrilintide
The compound discussed here, supplied as a research compound with a certificate of analysis matched to the lot.
What has not been measured
Name the absence plainly. These are the claims circulating that have no cagrilintide-specific data behind them.
- Muscle sparing. The idea that amylin analogs preserve lean mass better than GLP-1s is a hypothesis. It has not been settled in a trial designed to answer it.
- Cardiovascular outcomes. No completed outcomes trial for cagrilintide, alone or combined.
- What happens after stopping. The monotherapy trial ended at 26 weeks. There is no published long-term maintenance data for cagrilintide by itself.
- Anything cosmetic, anti-aging, or performance-related. These were never endpoints. Not in Phase 2, not in Phase 3.
A 2024 review of the obesity pipeline by Melson and colleagues in the International Journal of Obesity places amylin analogs among the more interesting candidates in development. In development is the operative phrase.
What the trials said about side effects
Benefits pages tend to stop before this part. The trials did not.
Gastrointestinal effects were the most common adverse events across the cagrilintide program, alone and in combination. Nausea and vomiting lead that list. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis by Dutta and colleagues pooled the available trials and reached the same conclusion.
Cagrilintide alone and as CagriSema was associated with significant weight loss, with gastrointestinal adverse events being the most commonly reported.
Dutta et al., Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2024That review also flagged how few trials exist. The pooled dataset for a compound this widely discussed is small.
Is cagrilintide approved, and what is in a research vial?
Cagrilintide is not FDA-approved, alone or as CagriSema, as of May 2026. Novo Nordisk is expected to file. Until that happens, nothing on the market is an approved medicine.
A research vial is not the trial drug. It is powder from a manufacturer you did not audit. The gap between those two things is the entire reason to read a certificate of analysis and to check whether the testing lab holds ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation.
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Cagrilintide
Third-party tested research compounds, each shipped with a batch-matched certificate of analysis showing HPLC purity and mass-spec identity — the documentation this site argues you should hold any supplier to.
What to know now
- Cagrilintide alone has one Phase 2 trial: 26 weeks, 9.7% body weight reduction.
- The 20.4% figure everyone quotes is CagriSema, which is cagrilintide plus semaglutide.
- The highest-dose monotherapy arm reached about 11%. That is the ceiling in the published record.
- Muscle sparing, cardiovascular benefit and long-term maintenance have not been measured for cagrilintide alone.
- Gastrointestinal adverse events were the most common in every trial reported.
- Nothing in this program is FDA-approved as of May 2026, and no trial used research-grade vials.
What we're watching
Watch whether Novo Nordisk files for approval and whether any trial is designed to measure cagrilintide monotherapy past 26 weeks. Until that exists, the 9.7% figure is the whole monotherapy record, and every larger number on the internet includes semaglutide.
Frequently asked questions
Does cagrilintide work without semaglutide?
It did in one Phase 2 trial. Lau and colleagues reported 9.7% body weight reduction over 26 weeks, with about 11% in the highest-dose arm. That is less than half the CagriSema figure. There is no published monotherapy data beyond 26 weeks.
Is cagrilintide a GLP-1?
No. Cagrilintide is an amylin analog. Amylin is a pancreatic hormone released with insulin at meals. Semaglutide is the GLP-1 in CagriSema. The two act through different receptors, which is the reason for combining them.
Is cagrilintide FDA-approved?
No. Neither cagrilintide nor CagriSema is FDA-approved as of May 2026. Novo Nordisk is expected to file. Material sold for research use is not an approved medicine regardless of what the trials found.
What does the 20.4% number actually refer to?
REDEFINE-1, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2025 by Garvey and colleagues. It ran 68 weeks and gave cagrilintide together with semaglutide. Attributing that result to cagrilintide alone is the most common error on this topic.
What are the reported side effects?
Gastrointestinal events led the list in every published trial, with nausea and vomiting most common. A 2024 meta-analysis by Dutta and colleagues pooled the available data and reached the same conclusion. That review also noted how few trials exist.
Is cagrilintide banned in sport?
Athletes should read the current WADA Prohibited List directly. It is revised annually and organized by class, and a vendor page is not a substitute for the document itself.
References
- Lau, D. C. W., Erichsen, L., Francisco, A. M., Satylganova, A., le Roux, C. W., McGowan, B., Pedersen, S. D., Pietiläinen, K. H., Rubino, D., & Batterham, R. L. (2021). Once-weekly cagrilintide for weight management in people with overweight and obesity: a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled and active-controlled, dose-finding phase 2 trial. The Lancet, 398(10317), 2160–2172. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01751-7
- Garvey, W. T., Blüher, M., Osorto Contreras, C. K., et al. (2025). Coadministered cagrilintide and semaglutide in adults with overweight or obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, 393(7), 635–647. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2502081
- Davies, M. J., Bajaj, H. S., Broholm, C., et al. (2025). Cagrilintide–semaglutide in adults with overweight or obesity and type 2 diabetes. New England Journal of Medicine, 393(7), 648–659. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2502082
- Dutta, D., Nagendra, L., Harish, B. G., et al. (2024). Efficacy and safety of cagrilintide alone and in combination with semaglutide (CagriSema) as anti-obesity medications: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, 28(5), 436–444. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijem.ijem_45_24
- Melson, E., Ashraf, U., Papamargaritis, D., & Davies, M. J. (2024). What is the pipeline for future medications for obesity? International Journal of Obesity, 49(3), 433–451. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-024-01473-y
- International Organization for Standardization. (2017). ISO/IEC 17025:2017 — General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. https://www.iso.org/standard/66912.html
- World Anti-Doping Agency. The Prohibited List 2026. https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list