£99 to £270
What it costs privately
There is no official UK list price, so providers set their own. Starting doses run from about £99 a month, rising to around £270 at the full 25 mg dose. Many providers knock £30 to £50 off the first month.
Medication, explained plainly
GLP-1 medicines in the UK: what each one is, and how to get it safely
These are prescription-only medicines, and they are genuinely effective. Used properly, with diet and movement, from a legitimate prescriber, they are the most powerful weight-management tools medicine has ever had. Bought from the wrong place, they can put you in hospital. Both things are true, so this page covers both.
The four names you need to understand
Mounjaro (tirzepatide)Weekly injection acting on two gut hormones, GLP-1 and GIP. The most effective licensed obesity medicine: up to 20.9% average weight loss in SURMOUNT-1. Licensed in the UK for weight management and type 2 diabetes.
Wegovy injection (semaglutide 2.4 mg)Weekly GLP-1 injection licensed for weight management. Produced 14.9% average loss in STEP 1, and cut heart attacks and strokes by 20% in the SELECT trial.
Wegovy pills (oral semaglutide 25 mg)A once-daily tablet, approved by the MHRA on 11 June 2026 and the first oral GLP-1 licensed for weight loss in the UK. Produced 13.6% average loss in OASIS 4. Taken on an empty stomach with a small glass of water, then nothing to eat or drink for 30 minutes. The dose starts at 1.5 mg and builds to 25 mg over about four months.
Ozempic (semaglutide)The same semaglutide molecule as Wegovy, but at lower doses (up to 1 mg weekly) and, crucially, a different licence. Ozempic is licensed for type 2 diabetes, not weight management. It is not simply "the same thing cheaper", and prescribing it for weight loss is off-label in the UK.
All of these medicines reduce appetite, slow stomach emptying and improve blood-sugar control. All of them were trialled alongside diet and lifestyle support, and all of their UK licences say the same thing: use them as part of a wider plan, not as a substitute for one. The most common side effects are nausea, digestive upset and constipation, usually worst in the days after a dose increase. Smaller, lower-fat meals, good hydration and gentle walking all genuinely help.
The new Wegovy pill: price, routine and NHS status
30 min
The daily ritual
One tablet first thing, on an empty stomach, with up to half a glass of plain water. Then nothing to eat, drink or swallow for at least 30 minutes. Take it with coffee or breakfast and you absorb a fraction of the dose.
2027+
Not on the NHS yet
NHS funding is a separate decision made by NICE, and that appraisal has not finished. If NICE recommends the pill, realistic NHS availability is 2027 or 2028, with strict eligibility criteria, as happened with the injection.
1.5 to 25 mg
The dose climbs slowly
Everyone starts at 1.5 mg and steps up roughly monthly through 4 mg and 9 mg to the full 25 mg. The slow build is deliberate: it is what keeps the nausea manageable for most people.
Who it is licensed for: adults with a BMI of 30 or above, or 27 to 29.9 with a weight-related condition such as type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure. The trial numbers sit close to the injection (13.6% average loss in OASIS 4 versus 14.9% in STEP 1), so the real choice is which routine suits your life: a strict daily morning ritual, or a weekly jab with no food rules. If a website claims to sell "generic GLP-1 pills" or "weight-loss semaglutide gummies", that is not this product. It is a red flag.
What is coming next (and what to ignore until it arrives)
Two names are starting to circulate online, and both need a clear-eyed reading:
Foundayo (orforglipron)Eli Lilly's once-daily GLP-1 tablet, and a genuinely different beast: a small molecule, not a peptide, so it needs no fasting routine, no water rules and no fridge. In the ATTAIN-1 trial it produced about 12.4% average weight loss at 72 weeks. The US approved it in April 2026, but it is not licensed in the UK. Any UK site offering Foundayo today is selling an unlicensed product. Walk away.
RetatrutideLilly's triple agonist (GLP-1, GIP and glucagon) and the most powerful obesity drug ever trialled: up to 28.7% average loss in TRIUMPH-4. It is still in phase 3 trials, with a realistic launch around 2027 to 2028. Anyone selling retatrutide now, at any price, in any form, is selling something fake or illegal. No exceptions.
The pattern to remember: real GLP-1 medicines appear on the MHRA licence register first, reach GPhC-registered pharmacies second, and only then appear in the checked lists at monj.co.uk, igovy.co.uk and ogovy.co.uk. Anything available "early" through a website, a social seller or a Telegram group is not early access. It is a scam or a crime.
Seen "GLP-1 patches" advertised? Read this first
There is no such thing as a licensed GLP-1 patch, anywhere in the world. Semaglutide and tirzepatide are large peptide molecules that cannot pass through skin, and no regulator has approved a patch version of any of these medicines. Products sold online as GLP-1 patches are unlicensed, untested, and at best useless. We wrote a full explanation of why they cannot work and what the scams look like.
The safety rules that actually matter
- Prescription only, always. Any UK source offering these medicines without a real clinical assessment is operating illegally, and dangerously.
- Check the pharmacy on the GPhC register. Every legitimate UK dispensing pharmacy appears on the General Pharmaceutical Council's public register. Check the pharmacy itself, not just the glossy website that took your order.
- Never buy from social media, marketplaces or messaging apps. Counterfeit weight-loss pens, some containing insulin or the wrong dose entirely, have hospitalised people in the UK.
- Tell the prescriber everything. A history of pancreatitis, certain thyroid cancers in the family, pregnancy, eating disorders and diabetes medication all change whether and how these medicines should be used.
- Be suspicious of bargains. Genuine medication has a real cost. Prices far below the market are a warning sign, not a deal.
Checked UK sources
The hardest part of doing this safely is telling a legitimate provider from a slick front for an unregistered seller. These independent UK sites keep checked lists of pharmacies and prescribing services for each medicine, so you can compare real options instead of gambling:
monj.co.uk
Vetted list of UK pharmacies and prescribers supplying Mounjaro (tirzepatide), with price comparison across registered providers.
Compare Mounjaro prices
igovy.co.uk
Checked UK provider list for the Wegovy injection (semaglutide 2.4 mg weekly pen).
Compare Wegovy pen prices
ogovy.co.uk
Safe-sourcing list for Wegovy pills (the daily oral semaglutide 25 mg tablet), the needle-free option approved in June 2026.
Compare Wegovy pill prices
Lists like these are a starting point, not a guarantee. Always verify the dispensing pharmacy on the GPhC register yourself before paying, and check the pharmacy's score at pharmacy-score.co.uk for a quick reputation read. Answer the clinical assessment honestly. It exists to keep you safe.
The regulators on your side
You do not have to take any website's word for anything, including ours. The GPhC keeps the public register of every legitimate UK pharmacy. The MHRA licenses the medicines themselves and prosecutes illegal sellers. The CQC inspects online clinics and prescribing services in England. And if you ever suspect a side effect from any medicine, the MHRA Yellow Card scheme lets you report it directly, in about ten minutes, no doctor's letter needed. We explain all six parts of the safety net on our regulators and Yellow Card page.
Who these medicines are (and are not) for
UK licensing generally covers adults with obesity (BMI of 30 or above), or a BMI of 27 and above with a weight-related condition such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure or sleep apnoea, always within a wider weight-management plan. They are not for pregnancy, not for people with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma or MEN2, and not a cosmetic shortcut for people already at a healthy weight. A genuine clinical assessment exists precisely to sort this out, which is why any provider that skips it disqualifies itself.
Key studies behind this page
We link the actual research, not press releases. These are the papers and reviews the numbers on this page come from.
- SURMOUNT-1 trial: Jastreboff et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2022. Tirzepatide led to up to 20.9% average weight loss at 72 weeks on the 15 mg dose.
- STEP 1 trial: Wilding et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2021. Semaglutide 2.4 mg led to 14.9% average weight loss at 68 weeks against 2.4% with placebo.
- OASIS 4 trial, 2025. Once-daily oral semaglutide 25 mg produced 13.6% average weight loss at 64 weeks against 2.2% with placebo, and around one in three adherent participants lost 20% or more.
- SELECT trial: Lincoff et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2023. Semaglutide 2.4 mg cut major cardiovascular events by 20% in people with existing heart disease and overweight or obesity.
- SURMOUNT-4 trial: Aronne et al., JAMA, 2024. People who stopped tirzepatide after 36 weeks regained about 14% of their weight within a year, while those who continued kept losing.
- STEP 1 extension: Wilding et al., Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 2022. One year after stopping semaglutide, participants had regained about two-thirds of the weight they had lost.
- ATTAIN-1 trial: Wharton et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2025. Orforglipron, Lilly's once-daily small-molecule GLP-1 tablet, produced about 12.4% average weight loss at 72 weeks on the top dose, with no fasting or water restrictions.
- TRIUMPH-4 trial, 2026. Retatrutide, a weekly triple agonist (GLP-1, GIP and glucagon) still in phase 3 testing, produced up to 28.7% average weight loss at 68 weeks, the largest result ever recorded in an obesity trial.