Cagrilintide

Amylin is a hormone released from the pancreas together with insulin after meals, and it promotes a feeling of fullness. Natural amylin clumps into amyloid fibrils easily, which makes it hard to use as a drug; the older analogue pramlintide needs injections three times a day. Novo Nordisk’s 2021 development paper describes cagrilintide as a stable, lipidated analogue designed to last long enough for once-weekly dosing ^[1].

Most of the clinical programme tests cagrilintide in a fixed combination with the GLP-1 agonist semaglutide, called CagriSema. Cagrilintide on its own is sold online as a research peptide; that material has no connection to Novo Nordisk’s clinical product. See what research peptides are.

Cagrilintide acts on amylin receptors, which are involved in satiety and slowing stomach emptying. Because amylin and GLP-1 act through different receptors, the rationale for CagriSema is that the two signals add together. In the phase 1b study, cagrilintide had a half-life of about 159 to 195 hours, supporting weekly injection, and it did not alter the exposure or elimination of semaglutide given at the same time ^[2].

Cagrilintide alone was tested in a 26-week phase 2 dose-finding trial in 706 adults with obesity or overweight but without diabetes. Weekly doses from 0.3 mg to 4.5 mg reduced body weight by 6.0% to 10.8%, against 3.0% on placebo, when participants stayed on treatment. The top dose, 4.5 mg, produced more weight loss than daily liraglutide 3.0 mg (10.8% against 9.0%) ^[3].

In type 2 diabetes, a 32-week phase 2 trial in 92 people compared CagriSema with each component alone. HbA1c fell by 2.2 percentage points with CagriSema, 1.8 with semaglutide and 0.9 with cagrilintide, and body weight fell by 15.6%, 5.1% and 8.1% respectively ^[4].

The phase 3 REDEFINE 1 trial enrolled 3,417 adults with obesity or overweight without diabetes for 68 weeks. CagriSema (2.4 mg of each drug weekly) reduced body weight by 20.4% against 3.0% on placebo, using the treatment-policy estimand ^[5]. REDEFINE 2, in 1,206 adults with type 2 diabetes and overweight or obesity, found 13.7% weight loss with CagriSema against 3.4% on placebo, and 73.5% of those on CagriSema reached an HbA1c of 6.5% or less ^[6].

Unusually for a peptide sold on research sites, cagrilintide has been given to thousands of people in randomised trials, most of them published in The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine ^{[3] [5] [6]}. Almost all of the large trials tested the CagriSema combination rather than cagrilintide alone, so the evidence for cagrilintide by itself rests mainly on the 26-week phase 2 trial ^[3].

The phase 2 monotherapy trial tested 0.3, 0.6, 1.2, 2.4 and 4.5 mg by subcutaneous injection once weekly, after a dose-escalation period of up to six weeks ^[3]. The phase 1b study tested 0.16 mg to 4.5 mg weekly alongside semaglutide 2.4 mg, escalating over 16 weeks ^[2]. The phase 3 CagriSema trials used cagrilintide 2.4 mg with semaglutide 2.4 mg once weekly ^{[5] [6]}.

These figures come from trials of Novo Nordisk’s investigational product and are reported for information only, not as a recommendation. Research powders sold online have not been shown to match them.

In the phase 2 trial the most frequent adverse events were gastrointestinal (nausea, constipation and diarrhoea) and injection-site reactions. Nausea affected 20% to 47% of participants on cagrilintide depending on dose, against 18% on placebo ^[3]. In REDEFINE 1, gastrointestinal adverse events were reported by 79.6% of people on CagriSema against 39.9% on placebo; most were transient and mild to moderate ^[5]. Long-term safety of cagrilintide alone has not been established in a phase 3 trial.

As of September 2026, cagrilintide is not approved as a medicine anywhere we could confirm, either alone or as CagriSema. Novo Nordisk announced on 18 December 2025 that it had submitted a New Drug Application to the FDA for CagriSema (cagrilintide 2.4 mg with semaglutide 2.4 mg) for weight management in adults with obesity, or overweight with at least one weight-related condition ^[7]. We could not confirm an FDA decision as of September 2026; check current FDA or Novo Nordisk announcements for updates.

Research-grade cagrilintide is unlicensed, and its legal position differs by country; see our legal status pages.

Research cagrilintide is sold as a freeze-dried powder. General practice is to keep it cold, dry and away from light and to refrigerate it after reconstitution. See how to store peptides.

PepFinder does not sell cagrilintide. You can compare prices, read how to read a COA, and check third-party tested suppliers. For related incretin-class peptides, see tirzepatide and retatrutide.