Yes, Wegovy is FDA-approved for chronic weight management. It was the first GLP-1 medication approved specifically for long-term weight loss, and in March 2024, it received an additional approval to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular death in adults with obesity or overweight who also have heart disease.
Who Qualifies for Wegovy
The FDA approved Wegovy for two groups of adults. The first is anyone with a BMI of 30 or higher, which meets the clinical definition of obesity. The second is anyone with a BMI of 27 or higher (overweight) who also has at least one weight-related health condition, such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, or high cholesterol. You need to use it alongside a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity.
Wegovy is also approved for adolescents aged 12 and older whose BMI falls at or above the 95th percentile for their age and sex, which is the clinical threshold for obesity in children.
How Wegovy Works
Wegovy’s active ingredient, semaglutide, mimics a natural hormone your gut releases after eating. This hormone activates receptors in the brain’s hunger-control centers, dialing down appetite and making you feel satisfied with less food. It also slows the rate at which your stomach empties into the small intestine, so meals keep you full longer. The combined effect is that most people simply eat fewer calories without feeling like they’re fighting constant hunger.
How It Differs From Ozempic
Wegovy and Ozempic contain the same active ingredient but are approved for different purposes. Ozempic is approved for managing type 2 diabetes and reducing cardiovascular risk in people with diabetes. Wegovy is the version approved for weight management, regardless of whether you have diabetes. Wegovy also comes in a higher maximum dose: 2.4 mg per week compared to Ozempic’s 2 mg cap. If your goal is weight loss and you don’t have type 2 diabetes, Wegovy is the FDA-approved option.
The Dosing Schedule
Wegovy uses a gradual dose-escalation approach over about four months to reduce side effects. You start at 0.25 mg once weekly for the first four weeks, then increase to 0.5 mg for weeks five through eight, 1 mg for weeks nine through twelve, and 1.7 mg for weeks thirteen through sixteen. From week seventeen onward, adults move to the full maintenance dose of 2.4 mg per week, though some may stay at 1.7 mg if the higher dose isn’t tolerated well. Adolescents move directly to 2.4 mg as their maintenance dose.
Each dose is a once-weekly injection you give yourself just under the skin, typically in the stomach, thigh, or upper arm. You can pick any day of the week and stick with it.
Common Side Effects
Digestive issues are the most frequent side effects, and they tend to be worst during the dose-escalation phase. In pooled clinical trial data, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and constipation were the most commonly reported problems at rates of 5% or higher. Abdominal pain, heartburn, bloating, gas, and fatigue also appeared at that threshold. Some participants reported headaches, dizziness, or hair loss.
Most of these side effects were mild to moderate and improved as the body adjusted. Still, nausea led 1.8% of trial participants to stop treatment entirely, vomiting led 1.2% to quit, and diarrhea accounted for another 0.7%. The gradual dose increases exist specifically to give your body time to adapt and minimize these reactions.
The Cardiovascular Approval
In March 2024, the FDA expanded Wegovy’s label to include a second indication: reducing the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack, and stroke in adults with obesity or overweight who already have established heart disease. This made Wegovy the first weight-management drug ever approved specifically for heart protection. The approval was based on a large clinical trial showing meaningful reductions in major cardiovascular events among participants taking semaglutide compared to placebo.
What Wegovy Costs
Wegovy’s price depends heavily on your insurance situation. With commercial insurance and the manufacturer’s savings program, your copay can drop to as little as $25 per month, subject to a maximum savings of $100 per month. People on government insurance programs like Medicare or Medicaid are not eligible for the savings card.
Without insurance, Novo Nordisk offers self-pay pricing through its specialty pharmacy. New patients can get the two lowest starting doses (0.25 mg and 0.5 mg) for $199 per month for the first two fills, then the price rises to $349 per month for standard doses up to 2.4 mg. A newer high-dose pen (7.2 mg) costs $399 per month. These self-pay prices are significantly lower than the list price that existed before the company introduced direct purchasing options, but they still represent a substantial ongoing expense for a medication most people need to take long-term to maintain results.