Wegovy shelf life: what you need to know before it expires

Step 1: keeping your unopened pens safe until you need them

When your Wegovy pens arrive they should go straight into the fridge, not the freezer compartment and not the fridge door where temperatures can fluctuate more than the main shelf. The licensed storage range is 2–8°C. Stored correctly within that range, an unopened pen is stable until the expiry date Novo Nordisk prints on the carton and on the pen itself.

That expiry date is established through rigorous stability testing. What it does not account for is poor storage: a pen left on a warm windowsill, dropped in a hot car, or accidentally frozen can degrade well before its printed date. The appearance of the solution will not always betray this, semaglutide that has been heat-damaged or frozen does not necessarily look cloudy or discoloured. When in doubt, contact our clinical team or your prescriber rather than guessing.

The semaglutide shelf life when unopened depends entirely on that cold chain being maintained from our pharmacy to your fridge without interruption. Our pens are dispatched in temperature-controlled packaging via DPD tracked delivery precisely because of this.

Step 2: what happens to shelf life once a pen is out of the fridge

This is the question our clinical team hears most often. Once a Wegovy pen has been removed from refrigerated storage, it can be held at room temperature up to 30°C for a defined period before it must be used or discarded. The exact number of days is clearly stated in the Patient Information Leaflet that comes with every pen, and in the Wegovy SmPC on the eMC, we deliberately do not reproduce the figure here because the 7.2mg single-dose pen approved by the MHRA in April 2026 and the earlier 2.4mg pens may carry different room-temperature windows, and citing the leaflet keeps you reading the most current, dose-specific guidance.

A practical note: the room-temperature clock starts when the pen leaves the fridge, not when you first use it. If you take a pen out, inject your dose, and then put the pen back in the fridge, the time it spent out of the cold still counts. Keep track. The shelf life of Wegovy after opening follows the same rules, the pen is considered "in use" from the moment it first leaves refrigerated storage.

Avoid leaving a pen in a gym bag near a radiator or in a coat pocket on a warm day for longer than the window allows. One patient-friendly habit: treat the fridge as the pen's home address and only take it out for injection day.

Step 3: spotting and responding to a pen you should not use

Before every injection, the Patient Information Leaflet instructs you to inspect the solution. Wegovy should be clear, colourless or slightly yellow, and free of visible particles. Do not inject a pen that looks cloudy, discoloured, or contains floating matter, even if it is within date and appears to have been stored correctly.

Similarly, never use a pen past its expiry date and never attempt to use a pen that has been frozen. Frozen and then thawed semaglutide should be discarded. If you have any doubt about a pen's condition, the right call is to contact your prescriber or our clinical support team rather than proceeding. You can also report suspected quality problems with a medicine through the MHRA's Yellow Card scheme.

For a fuller picture of how semaglutide behaves over time (including what the research says about its stability profile) the opened semaglutide shelf life page covers the evidence in more detail. If you are wondering how long treatment itself typically continues rather than just how long a pen lasts, the question of whether Wegovy is a lifelong medicine is worth reading.

Cost, sourcing and why storage integrity matters for safety

Wegovy is not inexpensive, and pens that are stored poorly or sourced outside the licensed UK supply chain represent a real financial and health risk. The MHRA has issued repeated warnings about counterfeit and illegally traded weight-loss pens sold online; some seized products have been found to contain insulin rather than semaglutide, with serious consequences for buyers. Purchasing from a GPhC-registered pharmacy (one you can verify on the GPhC register) is the most straightforward way to be confident your pen contains what it says and has travelled in a maintained cold chain.

If cost is a factor in your thinking, the real picture on Wegovy pricing in the UK explains what private treatment costs and why prices vary between providers. And if you are weighing up whether Wegovy is right for you at all, our Wegovy overview covers the full licensed picture, from eligibility to results, in one place.

For a regulated, clinician-reviewed supply, check your eligibility with our prescribers, the consultation is free.