Liraglutide: Saxenda, Victoza and the First Generic GLP-1
The oldest GLP-1 still prescribed for weight loss, and the only one you can now get as a generic. It is also the least effective of them, which is the trade this page is about.
- Only genericThe sole GLP-1 in this class with an FDA-approved generic version
- −7.4%Average body weight change at 56 weeks, from the FDA label
- DailyInjected every day, where every newer drug in the class is weekly or oral
- Age 12+Approved for adolescents with obesity, as semaglutide is and the newest drugs are not
Regulatory status
Liraglutide is FDA-approved and prescription-only, sold as Saxenda for weight management and Victoza for type 2 diabetes, with an initial United States approval of 2010. Generic versions of both are now approved. It carries a boxed warning about thyroid C-cell tumours.
The short version
Liraglutide is the drug that established this class. It reached the market years before semaglutide, and everything newer is in some sense a refinement of it: longer-acting, so weekly rather than daily, and more effective per the trials.
That leaves it in an unusual position. On the label’s own numbers it produces roughly a third of the weight reduction of tirzepatide, and it asks for an injection every day rather than once a week. Against that, it is the only drug here whose patent protection has lapsed, which in every other category of medicine is the moment prices fall.
Whether it has actually become cheap is a question we could not answer, and the reason is covered below.
Every approved liraglutide product
- Saxenda — injection. NDA 206321. Novo Nordisk. The weight-management product, indicated for adults, and for adolescents aged 12 and over who weigh more than 60 kg and have obesity. Also indicated for adults with overweight who have a weight-related condition.
- Victoza — injection. NDA 022341. The type 2 diabetes product, at a lower maximum daily amount than Saxenda. Same molecule, separate approval, not approved for weight management — the same brand split as Wegovy and Ozempic, or Zepbound and Mounjaro.
- Generic liraglutide. Approved for both indications. Teva’s generic of Saxenda was the first generic GLP-1 approved for weight loss; other manufacturers have since entered. A generic is required to be therapeutically equivalent to the product it references, so the trial evidence below applies to it.
On the boxed warning
The label states that liraglutide causes thyroid C-cell tumours in both rats and mice at clinically relevant exposures, and that whether it does so in humans is unknown. That is the strongest version of this warning in the class: tirzepatide‘s label cites rats only, and orforglipron‘s records no rodent tumours at all. The three warnings read almost identically. The evidence behind them differs considerably.
What the trials showed
Three 56-week placebo-controlled trials support the weight-management approval. Study 1 enrolled people with obesity, or overweight plus a related condition. Study 2 enrolled people with type 2 diabetes. Study 3 enrolled people who had already lost at least 5% of their weight through diet, testing whether the drug helps keep it off. Note the shorter follow-up than the newer drugs, which ran 72 weeks.
| At 56 weeks | Study 1 | Placebo | Study 2 (diabetes) | Placebo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average body weight change | −7.4% | −3.0% | −5.4% | −1.7% |
| Difference from placebo | −4.5 | — | −3.7 | — |
| Lost 5% or more | 62.3% | 34.4% | 49.0% | 16.4% |
| Lost 10% or more | 33.9% | 15.4% | 22.4% | 5.5% |
The difference from placebo in Study 1 was 4.5 percentage points, with a 95% confidence interval of 3.8 to 5.2. Real, precisely measured, and small. About a third of participants lost a tenth of their body weight or more — against roughly eight in ten on tirzepatide at its highest dose.
Study 3 is the interesting one and is rarely quoted. Among people who had already lost weight by dieting, those given liraglutide lost a further 4.9% over 56 weeks while the placebo group regained 0.3%. As a maintenance drug rather than a weight-loss drug, the case for it looks stronger than the headline figure suggests.
Tolerability
In the adult trials, 9.8% of people on liraglutide stopped because of adverse reactions, against 4.3% on placebo. The most common reasons were nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. Roughly one in ten leaving a trial because of side effects is worth weighing against a 7.4% average result.
The generic, and why we cannot tell you what it costs
Liraglutide is the only drug in this class with an approved generic. That should be the most important fact on this page. In practice we cannot tell you what it means for your bill, and the reason is worth stating plainly.
Lilly and Novo Nordisk both publish self-pay price lists for their newer products — every strength, with the conditions attached. We quote those directly on our cost comparison because they are the manufacturers’ own figures. Nothing equivalent exists for liraglutide. The generic manufacturers have not published self-pay pricing, and there is no manufacturer-run direct pharmacy for it comparable to NovoCare or LillyDirect.
What we will not do
We will not fill this gap with a figure from a coupon site or a price aggregator. Those numbers move constantly, vary by pharmacy and postcode, and are not the manufacturer’s own published price — which is the standard every other figure on this site meets. An honest blank is better than a precise-looking number we cannot stand behind. If you are pricing liraglutide, the answer will come from your own pharmacy or insurer, and it is worth asking specifically for the generic.
The wider point stands regardless. Generic entry is the mechanism that eventually makes medicines affordable, and liraglutide is the first drug in this class to reach it. What happens to its price over the next few years is the closest thing available to a preview of what happens to the rest when their patents lapse.
Where it sits in the class
Ranked on weight reduction alone, liraglutide comes last. These are separate trials with different populations and different lengths, so the comparison is inference rather than a head-to-head result — but the gap is wide enough that the direction is not in doubt.
| Drug | Average weight change in its own trial | How it is taken |
|---|---|---|
| Tirzepatide | −20.9% at 72 weeks | Weekly injection |
| Semaglutide | −14.9% at 68 weeks | Weekly injection, or daily tablet |
| Orforglipron | −11.1% at 72 weeks | Daily tablet |
| Liraglutide | −7.4% at 56 weeks | Daily injection |
Two things keep it relevant anyway. It is approved for adolescents aged 12 and over, which the newest drugs are not. And it is the only one with a generic — which, if generic competition does what it usually does, may matter more over time than the difference in effect size.
What we have looked at in detail
- Liraglutide side effects. Every reaction over 2% against placebo, the discontinuation figures, and the separate adolescent table — where vomiting runs at more than twice the adult rate.
- Cost without insurance. Self-pay pricing across the class, and why we publish no price for liraglutide itself.
What this site will not tell you
- What amount to inject, or how to move between strengths. The label sets that out for prescribers, and reproducing it here would function as instruction whatever the wording.
- A price for the generic. We publish manufacturers’ own published figures or nothing, and here there is nothing to publish.
- Whether an adolescent should take it. The approval exists; whether it applies to a particular young person is a clinical judgement and not one to make from a web page.
- Where to buy liraglutide without a prescription. Every approved product, brand and generic alike, is prescription-only.
Sources and method
- Indication, boxed warning, trial results and discontinuation rates. The approved prescribing information for Saxenda (liraglutide), NDA 206321, read from the FDA’s own document archive. The weight figures are Table 6 of that label.
- Application numbers. Drugs@FDA, queried by brand name, for Saxenda and Victoza.
- The generic approval. Teva’s own investor announcement of FDA approval and launch of generic liraglutide injection, the first generic GLP-1 indicated for weight loss.
- What we could not verify — and this one matters. Any self-pay price for liraglutide, brand or generic. We searched for a published manufacturer price list of the kind Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly maintain for their newer products and did not find one. We have therefore published no price rather than quoting an aggregator. We also have not confirmed which generic manufacturers currently have stock in distribution.
- Method. Figures come from the approved label, using its intent-to-treat analyses, with discontinuation rates reported alongside the results rather than omitted. Cross-drug comparisons here are explicitly labelled as inference across separate trials, because no head-to-head trial of liraglutide against the newer drugs is cited on its label. One figure in the comparison table is not from a label: the semaglutide result is the published STEP 1 trial figure at 68 weeks, cited as such on our GLP-1 hub, and it is a trial-publication number rather than a label one.
GLP-1 medications → Cost without insurance → How we source and verify →
FDA label read 5 September 2026. We recheck this page when the label is revised, and specifically when any manufacturer publishes a self-pay price for generic liraglutide.