CagriSema Lower Doses Cut Weight 21 Percent in Trial

Novo Nordisk announced the primary results of REDEFINE 9 on Saturday, November 14, 2026, a phase 3 trial of CagriSema, its investigational once-weekly injection combining the long-acting amylin analog cagrilintide with the GLP-1 receptor agonist semaglutide. The results were presented at ObesityWeek 2026 in Washington, D.C., and published the same day in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

REDEFINE 9 is the first phase 3 trial to test CagriSema below the program's maximum dose of 2.4 mg / 2.4 mg. It enrolled 309 adults with obesity, defined as a body mass index of 30 or higher, or overweight at 27 or higher with at least one obesity-related complication, and nobody in the trial had diabetes. The arms held 104 people on the 1.7 mg / 1.7 mg dose, 103 on 1.0 mg / 1.0 mg and 102 on pooled placebo, over 68 weeks.

If everyone had stayed on treatment, the estimated average weight loss at week 68 was 20.7 percent on the higher of the two lower doses and 21.0 percent on the lower one, against 2.0 percent on placebo. The placebo-adjusted differences were 18.8 and 19.0 percentage points, and both comparisons cleared p<0.0001. The headline number, in other words, doesn't depend on taking the maximum dose.

Counting everyone who started, including people who stopped treatment or needed rescue help, the averages came in smaller: 19.4 percent and 18.6 percent against 4.6 percent on placebo. On that same basis, 92.8 percent of the 1.7 mg group and 87.7 percent of the 1.0 mg group lost at least 5 percent of body weight, against 41.1 percent on placebo.

The trial wasn't powered to compare the two CagriSema doses against each other, so the near-identical efficacy figures don't establish that the lower dose is equal or better. Lead author Sean Wharton of the University of Toronto is on the published paper, and the dose-flexibility question is the one the dataset actually answers: patients who can't tolerate a top dose may not have to give up most of the effect.

One piece of the result isn't new. Novo Nordisk had already disclosed the roughly 21 percent figure for the 1.0 mg / 1.0 mg regimen at its Capital Markets Day on September 21, 2026. What's new in REDEFINE 9 is the complete two-dose dataset in a peer-reviewed record, which is the version regulators and prescribers will work from.

None of it is prescribable today. CagriSema isn't approved in the United States or anywhere else, and the application Novo Nordisk filed with the Food and Drug Administration in December 2025 covers the higher 2.4 mg / 2.4 mg dose, not the two lower doses in this trial. The company expects an FDA decision in the fourth quarter of 2026, and that decision, not this dataset, decides when the drug reaches a pharmacy.