What is CagriSema? New phase 3 drug trial sees 20% weight loss

You've probably heard of the 'big two' GLP-1 weight loss injectables.

There's tirzepatide (marketed as 'Mounjaro'), which typically results in a 20.9% weight loss when taken alongside healthy lifestyle changes. And there's semaglutide, which is marketed as 'Wegovy' for weight loss and 'Ozempic' for type 2 diabetes.

Semaglutide users typically lose around 14.9% of their body weight when taking the drug as part of a healthy lifestyle.

But GLP-1s are a fertile field of research. New weight loss drugs are being developed and tested all the time.

One of these drugs is called 'CagriSema'. And newly published phase 3 trial results suggest it could be a viable alternative to Wegovy and Mounjaro.

We'll look at those results in a moment. But first, let's put CagriSema under the microscope.

What is CagriSema?

CagriSema is a new weight loss drug from Novo Nordisk – the pharmaceutical company that developed semaglutide (Wegovy).

As the name suggests, CagriSema is a combination of two drugs. It includes semaglutide, as well as a new medication called 'cagrilintide'. 

This combination is interesting because semaglutide and cagrilintide work in slightly different ways. 

Semaglutide is a GLP-1 agonist – it mimics the hormone GLP-1, which has several roles in the body. Among other things, it plays a role in digestion, regulating blood sugar and helping you feel full after eating.

Cagrilintide, meanwhile, is an amylin analogue. Amylin is also a digestive hormone – and it's involved in many of the same bodily functions as GLP-1. 

The hope has been that by combining these similar yet distinct drugs, scientists can create a new treatment that's better than the sum of its parts.

Did they succeed? The results are in – let's find out.

What did we learn from the CagriSema phase 3 trial?

CagriSema's phase 3 trial results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine on 22 June 2025. The trial involved 3,417 non-diabetic adults living with overweight or obesity.

These participants were randomly assigned to receive one of four treatments over 68 weeks:

• A combination of cagrilintide and semaglutide (CagriSema)
• Cagrilintide alone
• Semaglutide alone
• A placebo (a harmless dummy drug with no medical effects)

Here are the key things we learned.

1. CagriSema may be almost as effective as Mounjaro

The participants who took CagriSema saw an average weight loss of 20.4%.³ That's just a little shy of Mounjaro's average of 20.9%.

We can't make firm conclusions without comparing the drugs in a head-to-head trial. At the very least, however, these results imply that CagriSema may be an effective alternative to Mounjaro for those who find tirzepatide difficult to tolerate.

2. CagriSema seems to be greater than the sum of its parts

As we've seen, semaglutide (Wegovy) results in an average weight loss of 14.9%. And in a previous trial, cagrilintide generated an average weight loss of 10.8%.

In the new trial, however, CagriSema users experienced an average weight loss of 20.4%.³ That's 5.5% more than semaglutide alone and 9.6% more than cagrilintide alone.

This result suggests that cagrilintide and semaglutide work better together than when taken individually.

3. A healthy lifestyle is still important for healthy weight loss