GLP-1 Medications: The Complete 2026 List

The confusing part of this drug class is not the science. It is the naming. One molecule can carry three brand names, each with a different FDA-approved use, a different dose ladder, and a different price. Ozempic and Wegovy are the same drug. Mounjaro and Zepbound are the same drug. Neither pair is interchangeable on a prescription, because the label is what defines the approved use. This page maps all of it from the current prescribing information, product by product.

What Is a GLP-1, Physiologically

GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptide-1. It is an incretin hormone released by L-cells in your small intestine and colon within minutes of food arriving. Native GLP-1 is broken down almost immediately by the enzyme DPP-4, which is why the natural hormone has a half-life measured in minutes and why every drug in this class is engineered to resist that breakdown and last for hours or days.

A GLP-1 receptor agonist is a drug that binds and activates the same receptor the hormone does. Per the FDA prescribing information for these products, activating that receptor produces four effects that matter clinically:

• Glucose-dependent insulin release. The pancreas releases more insulin when blood glucose is elevated, and the effect tapers as glucose falls. That glucose dependence is why GLP-1 monotherapy carries a low intrinsic hypoglycemia risk, and why the labels warn that combining one with insulin or a sulfonylurea does raise that risk.
• Suppressed glucagon. Less glucagon means less glucose dumped out of the liver between meals.
• Delayed gastric emptying. Food leaves the stomach more slowly, which blunts the post-meal glucose spike and increases the feeling of fullness. This is also the mechanism behind most of the nausea, and the reason the labels carry warnings about pulmonary aspiration during general anesthesia or deep sedation.
• Reduced appetite signaling. GLP-1 receptors in the hypothalamus and brainstem influence satiety and food reward, which is the pathway behind the reduced calorie intake seen with these drugs.

The Complete GLP-1 Medications List (2026)

Every row below reflects the current FDA-approved prescribing information published on DailyMed. Indications are stated as the label states them. Where a product is approved for type 2 diabetes, it is not approved for weight loss, and vice versa.

Two combination products also contain a GLP-1 receptor agonist paired with a long-acting insulin, both indicated as an adjunct to diet and exercise to improve glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes: Soliqua 100/33 (insulin glargine plus lixisenatide) and Xultophy 100/3.6 (insulin degludec plus liraglutide). Both are daily injections. Neither is a weight-management product.

Generic to Brand Name Mapping (The Part That Confuses Everyone)

Two molecules account for nearly every GLP-1 search, and both of them ship under multiple brand names. This is the single most useful thing to internalize about the class.

Tirzepatide brand names: Mounjaro and Zepbound

Tirzepatide is one molecule from Eli Lilly, sold as two brands. Both are once-weekly subcutaneous injections available in single-dose pens and single-dose vials in the same six strengths: 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, and 15 mg. What differs is the label. Mounjaro is approved as an adjunct to diet and exercise to improve glycemic control in adults and pediatric patients 10 years and older with type 2 diabetes. Zepbound is approved for long-term weight reduction and maintenance in adults with obesity or overweight plus a weight-related comorbidity, and for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity.

Practically, that means a Mounjaro prescription written for weight loss is off-label prescribing. It is legal for a licensed clinician, but it is not an FDA-approved use of that product, and insurers often treat the two brands very differently as a result. Our Mounjaro vs Ozempic comparison covers how that plays out across both molecules, and the tirzepatide dosing guide reports the label titration schedule in full.

Semaglutide brand names: Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus

Semaglutide is one molecule from Novo Nordisk, sold under three brand names and in both injectable and oral form:

• Ozempic is the weekly injection with a diabetes label: glycemic control in type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular risk reduction in type 2 diabetes with established cardiovascular disease, and kidney outcomes in type 2 diabetes with chronic kidney disease. Injection strengths deliver 0.25, 0.5, 1, and 2 mg doses.
• Wegovy is the weight-management and cardiovascular label, given as a weekly injection with a usual maintenance dosage of 2.4 mg once weekly. Wegovy also carries an accelerated approval for noncirrhotic MASH with moderate to advanced fibrosis. A higher-strength 7.2 mg presentation is listed on the label as Wegovy HD.
• Rybelsus is the daily oral tablet with a diabetes label, in 3, 7, and 14 mg strengths.
• Ozempic-branded tablets are a separate oral semaglutide presentation in 1.5, 4, and 9 mg strengths, sharing the Rybelsus label: glycemic control in type 2 diabetes plus cardiovascular risk reduction in adults with type 2 diabetes at high risk for those events. They do not carry the Ozempic injection kidney indication. The prescribing information states plainly that Rybelsus and Ozempic tablets are not substitutable on a milligram-to-milligram basis.
• Wegovy tablets are oral semaglutide with the adult weight-management and cardiovascular indications, in 1.5, 4, 9, and 25 mg strengths. They do not carry the Wegovy injection indications for patients 12 and older or for noncirrhotic MASH.

If you are trying to work out which one applies to you, the Wegovy vs Ozempic guide takes the two head-on, and the semaglutide dosing guide lays out what the labels specify for each form.

GLP-1 vs Dual GIP/GLP-1 vs the New Oral Small Molecule

Not everything on this list works the same way at the receptor level. Three distinct designs are now on the US market:

That third row is the genuinely new category. Every oral GLP-1 before it was a peptide wrapped in an absorption enhancer, which is why Rybelsus has to be swallowed whole on an empty stomach with no more than four ounces of water and a 30-minute wait before anything else. A small molecule does not carry that constraint. The GLP-1 pill guide walks through every oral option and how they differ in practice.

Weekly Injection, Daily Injection, Daily Pill

Form is the practical dividing line most people actually feel. Here is the class sorted by how often you take it:

A weekly injection is 52 administrations a year. A daily pill is 365, each with its own adherence window. Neither is inherently better, and the labels do not rank them. The trade-off is real, though: the oral semaglutide products carry fasting and water-volume instructions that a weekly pen does not.

GLP-1s for Weight Loss: What Is Approved and What Is Off-Label

This is where most of the misinformation lives, so it is worth stating flatly. Five products in this class carry an FDA-approved chronic weight management indication:

• Wegovy injection (semaglutide), weekly
• Wegovy tablets (oral semaglutide), daily
• Zepbound (tirzepatide), weekly
• Saxenda (liraglutide), daily
• Foundayo (orforglipron), daily oral

Every other product on this page is approved for type 2 diabetes. Ozempic, Rybelsus, Mounjaro, Victoza, Trulicity, and Byetta are not FDA-approved for weight loss. When a clinician prescribes one of them for weight management, that is off-label prescribing. Off-label prescribing is legal and common in US medicine, and it is a decision that belongs to a licensed prescriber who knows your history. It is not the same thing as an approved indication, and it is not a distinction marketing copy tends to make for you.

GLP-1 Head-to-Head: Tirzepatide Versus Semaglutide

Cross-trial comparisons between GLP-1s are a trap. Different populations, different baseline weights, different durations, different definitions of the endpoint. The comparison most people are asking about is tirzepatide versus semaglutide for weight, and one randomized trial answers it directly. SURMOUNT-5 is the only head-to-head trial of tirzepatide against semaglutide in adults with obesity and without type 2 diabetes.

SURMOUNT-5, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2025, was a phase 3b open-label trial that randomized 751 adults with obesity and without type 2 diabetes 1:1 to the maximum tolerated dose of tirzepatide (10 or 15 mg) or the maximum tolerated dose of semaglutide (1.7 or 2.4 mg), both once weekly, for 72 weeks. The least-squares mean percent change in weight at week 72 was minus 20.2 percent with tirzepatide and minus 13.7 percent with semaglutide. Mean waist circumference change was minus 18.4 cm versus minus 13.0 cm.

Read that with the caveats attached. It is one trial, open-label, in adults with obesity and without diabetes, using the weight-management formulations at maximum tolerated dose. It says nothing about which drug you will tolerate, what your insurer covers, what either costs you, or what your medical history rules out. Direct comparisons in other populations exist and answer different questions. SURPASS-2 (Frías JP, et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2021) randomized adults with type 2 diabetes to tirzepatide or semaglutide, with glycemic control as the primary endpoint. Our semaglutide vs tirzepatide comparison digs into the full evidence base on both sides.

What the FDA Labels Specify for Dosing

What follows is educational reporting of what the FDA-approved labels specify. It is not a recommendation, and it is not a schedule for you. Your prescriber determines your dosing, your titration pace, and whether any of these are appropriate at all.

Side Effects Across the Class

The most common adverse reactions listed on these labels are strikingly consistent, because they trace back to the shared mechanism. The Mounjaro label lists nausea, diarrhea, decreased appetite, vomiting, constipation, dyspepsia, and abdominal pain as most common. Ozempic lists nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and constipation. Zepbound adds injection-site reactions, fatigue, eructation, hair loss, and gastroesophageal reflux to that gastrointestinal core.

Beyond the common reactions, the labels share a set of warnings worth knowing before any conversation with a prescriber:

• Boxed warning for thyroid C-cell tumors. Semaglutide, tirzepatide, liraglutide, dulaglutide, and orforglipron products all carry a boxed warning based on rodent studies, and are contraindicated in people with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma or MEN 2. Byetta is the exception in this list and does not carry that boxed warning.
• Acute pancreatitis. Observed with GLP-1 receptor agonists; the labels direct discontinuation if pancreatitis is suspected.
• Severe gastrointestinal adverse reactions. A warning added or updated across several labels in 2025 and 2026.
• Acute gallbladder disease and acute kidney injury from volume depletion (dehydration driven by vomiting or diarrhea).
• Hypoglycemia when combined with insulin or an insulin secretagogue.
• Pulmonary aspiration during general anesthesia or deep sedation, a consequence of delayed gastric emptying, which is why anesthesiologists now ask about these drugs before procedures.

Per-drug detail lives in our Ozempic side effects guide and tirzepatide side effects guide. Report anything unexpected to your prescriber, not to a forum.

Compounded GLP-1s Are Not on This List

Compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide are not FDA-approved. The FDA does not review compounded drugs for safety, effectiveness, or quality before they are marketed. That is the FDA's own framing, not ours, and it is the reason none of these products appear in the table above.

The agency has been specific about the harm it has seen. FDA states it received multiple adverse event reports, some requiring hospitalization, that may relate to dosing errors with compounded injectable semaglutide, arising from patients measuring and self-administering incorrect doses and from health care professionals miscalculating doses. It has also received reports involving compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide prescribed at doses beyond what the approved label allows, including larger single doses, more frequent dosing, and faster titration.

Separately, FDA has warned about fraudulent compounded products whose labels carry false information, including cases where the compounding pharmacy named on the label does not exist, and cases naming a licensed pharmacy that did not make the product. The agency has also stated that retatrutide and cagrilintide cannot be used in compounding under federal law, are not components of any FDA-approved drug, and have not been found safe and effective for any condition.

If you are weighing a compounded program anyway, read our compounded semaglutide guide first, and go in knowing what you are and are not buying.

Older Agents and Combination Products

A few GLP-1 brand names still circulate in older articles but no longer have active listings in the FDA National Drug Code Directory: Bydureon and Bydureon BCise (exenatide extended-release), Adlyxin (lixisenatide as a standalone), and Tanzeum (albiglutide). If a source is pitching you one of those, it is out of date.

Lixisenatide does remain available in the US, but only inside Soliqua 100/33, its fixed-ratio combination with insulin glargine. Liraglutide likewise appears inside Xultophy 100/3.6 alongside insulin degludec. Both combinations are indicated as an adjunct to diet and exercise to improve glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes, and both are daily injections.

Byetta (exenatide, twice daily) is the oldest agent still on the list. It is the only product here without the thyroid C-cell boxed warning, and it is dosed before meals rather than on a fixed weekly schedule.

What These Cost and How People Access Them

Cash prices for this class move constantly, vary by brand and by pharmacy, and depend heavily on manufacturer self-pay channels and telehealth program structure. We track those numbers on dedicated pages rather than freezing a figure here that will be stale in a month:

• Semaglutide cost: verified monthly program prices from clinics that publish a number
• Tirzepatide cost: the same methodology applied to Zepbound and Mounjaro programs
• Cheapest GLP-1 without insurance: both molecules, price-compared across access routes
• Best GLP-1 weight loss programs: which telehealth programs carry which medications, and what each includes
• Ozempic alternatives: what to consider when Ozempic is not the right fit or not accessible
• GLP-1 and weight-loss clinics by state: cash-pay clinics near you

Whatever route you take, every product on this page is prescription-only, requires a licensed prescriber, and involves ongoing monitoring. The list above tells you what exists. It does not tell you what is right for you.