What strength does semaglutide come in — injection and tablet

You've seen 2.4 mg mentioned everywhere — here's what the other strengths actually do

Picture this: your prescription arrives and the dose on the box is 0.25 mg. You'd be forgiven for wondering whether that's a typo. It isn't. The starter strength exists purely to let your digestive system adjust. Nausea, the most common early side effect, is far more manageable when semaglutide is introduced gradually. Your body needs a few weeks at low doses before the medicine can do its weight-management work at higher concentrations.

The full Wegovy injection ladder runs 0.25 mg, 0.5 mg, 1.0 mg, 1.7 mg and 2.4 mg. Most people spend roughly four weeks at each level, though the pace is set by their prescriber based on tolerance, not a fixed calendar. The 2.4 mg dose is the standard maintenance level for the injection, and the weight-loss evidence from the STEP 1 trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was built around this strength, participants averaged around 15% body-weight reduction over 68 weeks. That figure comes from a controlled clinical trial; individual outcomes vary. For a closer look at how each injection dose is structured, the Wegovy dose guide on this site walks through the schedule in more detail.

In April 2026 the MHRA approved a single-dose 7.2 mg pen, a higher maintenance ceiling for adults with a BMI of 30 or above. Trials at this strength reported average weight loss of around 20.7% over 72 weeks, closing the gap with tirzepatide. The same titration logic applies: you work up through the established steps before reaching 7.2 mg. Which pen format is available and suitable is confirmed at consultation, not assumed.

The tablet strengths are different numbers, and an entirely different morning routine

The oral Wegovy tablet follows a separate strength ladder: 1.5 mg, 4 mg, 9 mg, then 25 mg at maintenance. These numbers look nothing like the injection doses because the oral route has much lower bioavailability, the medicine is paired with an absorption enhancer called SNAC, and even then only a fraction of each tablet reaches the bloodstream compared with a subcutaneous injection. The 25 mg tablet delivers a broadly comparable therapeutic effect to the 2.4 mg injection, which is why the NHS medicines information for semaglutide treats them as separate formulations rather than a single continuous scale.

Taking the tablet correctly matters as much as the dose itself. It goes down first thing in the morning, on a completely empty stomach, with a small amount of plain water, up to 120 ml. Then you wait at least 30 minutes before coffee, breakfast or any other oral medicine. Miss that window and absorption falls sharply. It's the kind of thing that becomes second nature once it's part of your routine, but it's worth planning around. In the OASIS 4 phase-3 trial, participants who followed the tablet regimen fully averaged around 17% weight loss over 64 weeks; across all participants regardless of adherence the average was approximately 13.6%.

One thing worth flagging: Rybelsus also comes as oral semaglutide in 3 mg, 7 mg and 14 mg tablets, but those strengths are licensed for type 2 diabetes, not weight management. They are not steps on the Wegovy weight-loss ladder. If you see those numbers referenced in a weight-loss context online, that's a mistake. More on how to read semaglutide strength information accurately is covered in the dedicated strengths guide.

Which strength is actually right for you, and how that gets decided

A number on a box doesn't tell a prescriber much on its own. What matters is how you're responding at each step: whether side effects are manageable, whether you're losing weight at a medically appropriate pace, and whether there are any reasons (clinical history, other medicines, specific conditions) to hold a dose longer or adjust the schedule. The weight-loss treatment overview sets out the broader picture of how these medicines sit within a structured programme.

For context on what the evidence says about outcomes at different strengths, the page on which Wegovy strength produces results covers the trial data by dose in more detail. The maintenance-dose guide is also useful if you're trying to understand where the titration is heading and when most people reach it.

At nume, every consultation is read by a GPhC-registered Independent Prescriber, a real clinician, not a decision tree. They look at the full picture before making any recommendation. If you're weighing up whether semaglutide is the right fit, or you want to understand what a realistic dose journey looks like for your situation, the full Wegovy guide is a solid starting point. Questions about cost are worth reading too; the Wegovy pricing page explains what private treatment typically involves and what to look out for. When you're ready, start your free consultation and our prescribers will take it from there.