Research

Hormonal

Tirzepatide (5, 10, and 15 mg once weekly) achieves glycaemic targets (HbA1c < 7.0% and ≤ 6.5%) significantly faster than semaglutide 1 mg and insulin degludec in patients with type 2 diabetes.

If you have type 2 diabetes, starting tirzepatide will likely lower your blood sugar (HbA1c) to target levels faster than starting semaglutide 1 mg or insulin degludec, even though you start on a low dose. You will need to wait 4-20 weeks to reach your full maintenance dose depending on the strength chosen, but clinical targets are met sooner with tirzepatide than with the comparators.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
The median time to achieve HbA1c < 7.0% (8.1 weeks with each tirzepatide dose, 12.0 weeks with semaglutide 1 mg, and 12.1 weeks with insulin degludec) and ≤ 6.5% (12.1, 15.7, and 24.1 weeks, respectively) was faster with tirzepatide than semaglutide 1 mg and insulin degludec.
Adie Viljoen et al. · Diabetes Therapy · 2023

Why this rating

Based on pre-planned exploratory analysis of two large, randomized Phase 3 trials (SURPASS-2 and SURPASS-3) with robust statistical methods (Cox proportional-hazards).

Source

Time to Reach Glycaemic and Body Weight Loss Thresholds with Tirzepatide in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Pre-planned Exploratory Analysis of SURPASS-2 and SURPASS-3

Adie Viljoen et al. · Diabetes Therapy · 2023

DOI 10.1007/s13300-023-01398-1

rct · n=3315Cited 11×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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