Research
Adherence
At a population level, distributing GLP-1 medications using less frequent dosing regimens (e.g., every two weeks) allows twice as many obese adults to be treated with the same total drug supply, leading to greater reductions in national obesity rates and mortality compared to standard once-weekly dosing.
This finding is primarily for policymakers and insurers. It suggests that subsidizing GLP-1 drugs for less frequent dosing could save more lives by allowing more people to access treatment. For individual patients, this means that getting on a GLP-1 drug, even at a lower dose or frequency, is better than not getting it at all.
LimitedSupportsLOW confidence
Though scenarios (1) and (2) require the same budget, our analysis suggests that (2) reduces national obesity and mortality to a much greater degree.
Why this rating
Based on mathematical modeling and simulation of national health data.
Source
Alternative dosing regimens of GLP-1 receptor agonists may reduce costs and maintain weight loss efficacy
Anıl Cengiz et al. · medRxiv · 2024
DOI 10.1101/2024.11.27.24318093
preprintCited 1×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Extending the dosing interval of GLP-1 receptor agonists (e.g., semaglutide, tirzepatide) from once-weekly to once-every-two-weeks maintains approximately 70-75% of the weight loss efficacy while reducing total drug cost by 50%.Limited
- For patients on lower doses of tirzepatide (e.g., 5 mg), switching to a less frequent dosing schedule (e.g., every two weeks) while simultaneously increasing the dose size (e.g., to 10 mg or 15 mg) can maintain or even exceed the weight loss efficacy of the standard once-weekly regimen.Limited
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