Switching from weight loss jabs to daily pill could help keep off pounds

People on weight loss jabs could maintain their progress by shifting to a daily pill after finishing treatment, a study suggests.

Researchers have highlighted the orforglipron pill as a potentially "effective approach" for maintaining weight loss in people who don't want to or can't keep having the jabs.

The drug, they say, is "significantly cheaper to manufacture" than the likes of Mounjaro and Wegovy and is also a GLP-1 agonist, a class of medication which helps to lower blood sugar levels, slow digestion, and reduce appetite.

The daily pill - produced by Eli Lily, which funded the research - is not yet licensed in the UK, but was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the US last month.

A trial involved 376 people in the US who had been on tirzepatide or semaglutide - used for weight loss on the NHS under the brand names Wegovy and Mounjaro - for 72 weeks.

Those patients were then given a daily pill of orforglipron or a placebo for a year.

The study, published in Nature Medicine, found that among those who had been on tirzepatide, patients who shifted to orforglipron maintained 74.7% of their weight loss after a year, compared with 49.2% taking the placebo.

Some 79.3% of former semaglutide users also maintained their weight loss, compared to 37.6% in the placebo group.

The findings come after a previous study suggested people on the jabs were likely to regain the majority of weight lost within a year of stopping injecting.

Read more from Sky News:
The popular sandwiches with 'alarmingly high' salt content
'Really significant moment' as Kate returns to world stage

Reacting to the latest findings, Dr Marie Spreckley, research programme manager at the University of Cambridge, said: "One of the most valuable aspects of this study is that it reflects a highly realistic clinical scenario.

"Many people do not want to remain on injectable therapy indefinitely due to treatment burden, convenience, travel, storage requirements, cost, or personal preference.

"The possibility of transitioning to an oral therapy while maintaining a substantial proportion of the previously achieved weight reduction could therefore represent an important additional option within longer-term obesity care pathways."

Dr Simon Cork, senior lecturer in physiology at Anglia Ruskin University, noted that while patients lost more weight using injectable drugs, they are expensive.

"This limits their long-term applicability both for private purchasers and the NHS," he said.

"Newer, oral medications are significantly cheaper to manufacture, but do not tend to produce the same level of weight loss seen with injectable medications."

He also said that while more research is needed with a larger group of patients, the findings point to "a potential future for how patients with obesity are treated, and how the success of weight loss can be maintained".

(c) Sky News 2026: Switching from weight loss jabs to daily pill could help keep off pounds