Obesity rates in the switcher group fell 21.6 points, and the pill still has no Canadian launch
Adults who switched from injectable GLP-1 medicines to the once-daily Wegovy pill lost an average of 4.1 percent of their body weight, or 4.0 kg (8.8 lb), over three months in the OCTANE study presented at the 62nd annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Milan.
The pill is not authorized for sale in Canada.
Novo's Wednesday release states it has launched in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United Arab Emirates, with select markets to follow in coming quarters.
Canadians using GLP-1 drugs for weight loss pay about $200 to $400 a month, often out of pocket because many insurance plans do not cover them for obesity, Benefits and Pension Monitor reported in January.
A Leger Healthcare survey found about three million Canadian adults were already taking GLP-1 drugs, with a quarter paying entirely out of pocket.
Novo said OCTANE was a retrospective cohort analysis of de-identified data from the Ro telehealth platform, covering 194 adults with obesity or overweight (BMI 27 to 29.9 kg/m²) with at least one obesity-related complication and no history of diabetes or bariatric surgery.
Participants switched from injectable semaglutide or tirzepatide to oral semaglutide between January 5 and February 7 and had to stay on treatment for three months with no gap longer than 30 days.
Mean baseline weight was 100.5 kg (221.6 lb) and mean BMI was 34.5 kg/m².
Half started on Wegovy injection and the rest on Eli Lilly's Zepbound, CNBC reported.
Novo said 40.7 percent achieved 5 percent or more weight loss at three months, and the proportion classified as living with obesity (BMI 30 kg/m² or above) fell from 87.1 percent to 65.5 percent, a decrease of 21.6 percentage points.
Among participants with available data, 82.4 percent reported at least one treatment improvement, including better-fitting clothes (about 69 percent) and healthier eating (about 51 percent).
Around 75 percent said they were satisfied with the switch to a pill, Novo told CNBC.
Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York and a co-author, said in Novo's release, "What the OCTANE data showed is that a switch to oral semaglutide may be a viable path for the right patient, with real weight loss and lifestyle improvements in the first three months."
Limitations listed by Novo include variable timing and completeness of data collected during routine telehealth care, self-reported data subject to bias, selection bias from the persistence requirement, and results not being generalizable to the broader population.
Real-world studies evaluate associations and cannot determine causality.
Martin Holst Lange, Novo's chief scientific officer, told Reuters, "Clearly, a lot of patients do even better on the pill than they did on the (injectable) drugs, and I think that is strong data."
Oral therapies account for about a third of US obesity prescriptions, Reuters reported, citing company presentations from earlier in September, with Novo capturing more than 80 percent of new oral prescriptions.
Benefits and Pension Monitor reported in April that oral Wegovy recorded 3,071 prescriptions in its first four days on the US market, citing Reuters.
Novo chief executive Mike Doustdar told Reuters in September that weight-loss pills could capture as much as half of the global obesity-drug market, which analysts estimate could be worth US$100bn annually or more by the end of the decade.
Novo shares have fallen more than 70 percent from their peak.
