Oral treatment comparison | Last checked 3 Nov 2026

Foundayo vs the Wegovy Pill

For the first time, the UK has two daily oral weight loss treatments rather than one. They are not the same kind of medicine, they are not taken the same way, and the differences matter more day to day than the headline price. Below, we compare the two plainly.

The short answer

The Wegovy pill is oral semaglutide, the tablet form of the same active medicine used in the Wegovy injection. Foundayo is orforglipron, a different class of molecule entirely, and the practical consequence is the daily routine: the Wegovy pill requires a strict fasting window, while Foundayo does not carry the same food and water restrictions. For many people that single difference decides which treatment fits their life.

Both are prescription-only medicines. Which one is appropriate, or whether either is, is a decision for a registered prescriber after a proper assessment. Ogovy compares prices and practicalities only, and does not recommend one treatment over another.

Side by side

	Wegovy pill	Foundayo
Active medicine	Oral semaglutide, a peptide	Orforglipron, a non-peptide small molecule
How it is taken	Once daily on an empty stomach, with a small sip of water, waiting at least 30 minutes before food, drink or other oral medicines	Once daily, without the same food and water restrictions
Dose ladder	1.5mg, 4mg, 9mg, 25mg	0.8mg, 2.5mg, 5.5mg, 9mg, 14.5mg, 17.2mg
Maintenance dose	25mg	Set by the prescriber from the higher steps of the ladder
UK status	MHRA approved and widely stocked at every strength	MHRA approved August 2026, availability still building across pharmacies
Injectable equivalent	Yes, the Wegovy injection uses the same active medicine	No, orforglipron is oral only
Price tracking	Tracked here on Ogovy	Tracked on our sister site Dayo

Current Wegovy pill pricing

Live from the Ogovy tracking engine, showing the lowest tracked entry point across regulated UK pharmacies:

For the full ladder see the main comparison table or the individual dose pages: 1.5mg, 4mg, 9mg and 25mg maintenance.

Current Foundayo pricing

Ogovy covers the Wegovy pill. Foundayo prices are tracked by Dayo, the Medstack Ltd site dedicated to it, using the identical method: manual checks, direct provider price access and automated scans, all verified by a person, with the true checkout total including delivery and mandatory fees.

Early market, moving prices. Foundayo reached UK pharmacies only in August 2026. Launch pricing in a new market tends to move quickly as more pharmacies list it and introductory offers appear and expire. Treat any figure you read anywhere, including ours, as a snapshot with a timestamp rather than a settled price.

See live Foundayo prices on Dayo

The Wegovy pill: strengths and drawbacks

In its favour

The active medicine, semaglutide, has an established track record in its injectable form
A mature UK market: more pharmacies list it, price competition is established and introductory offers are common
Four titration steps to the 25mg maintenance dose, so fewer months of ramping up
An injectable version of the same active medicine exists, so a prescriber has the option of moving between formats
In OASIS 4, serious adverse events were less frequent on treatment than on placebo

Against it

A strict daily routine: empty stomach, a small sip of water only, and at least 30 minutes before food, drink or other oral medicines
That fasting window has to be worked around other oral medication, which can be awkward if you take several
Daily dosing, which some people find harder to sustain than a weekly injection

Foundayo: strengths and drawbacks

In its favour

No food or water restrictions, and it can be taken at any time of day rather than in a fixed fasting window
Far easier to fit around other oral medicines and around shift work or irregular mornings
A non-peptide small molecule, a different class from semaglutide, which gives prescribers another option where one class has not suited someone
Smaller increments between doses, which gives a prescriber finer control when titrating

Against it

New to the UK as of August 2026, so fewer pharmacies list it and price competition is not yet established
Supply and availability are still settling, and launch pricing tends to move
A longer titration ladder means more months before reaching the maintenance dose
No injectable equivalent, so switching format is not an option within the same medicine
In ATTAIN-1, adverse events led between 5.3% and 10.3% of participants to discontinue, against 2.7% on placebo

The routine is the underrated factor. A treatment you take correctly and consistently is worth more than a cheaper one you struggle to fit around your day. Missed or incorrectly taken doses waste money as surely as paying too much does.

What the clinical trials found

Both treatments have published phase 3 results in the New England Journal of Medicine, and by coincidence both papers share the same lead author, Dr Sean Wharton, medical director of the Wharton Medical Clinic in Ontario. The trials were run and funded separately by the two manufacturers.

Foundayo: the ATTAIN-1 trial

Design: phase 3, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled over 72 weeks
Participants: 3,127 adults with obesity, or overweight with a weight-related condition, without diabetes
Doses studied: 6mg, 12mg and 36mg once daily
Result: average weight reduction of 7.8%, 9.3% and 12.4% across the three doses, against 2.1% for placebo
Tolerability: adverse events led 5.3% to 10.3% of participants to stop treatment, against 2.7% on placebo, mostly gastrointestinal and mostly mild to moderate
Investigators: led from Weill Cornell Medicine, McMaster University and York University, with Dr Louis J. Aronne among the named authors
Funding: Eli Lilly. Registration NCT05869903

Published 16 September 2025 and presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting. Read the paper in the NEJM or the Weill Cornell Medicine summary.

Wegovy pill: the OASIS 4 trial

Design: phase 3, randomised, placebo-controlled, 64 weeks on treatment after a 12 week dose escalation
Participants: 307 adults with overweight or obesity, without diabetes
Dose studied: 25mg once daily
Result: average weight reduction of 16.6% among those who completed treatment as intended, against 2.7% for placebo. Counting everyone regardless of adherence, 13.6% against 2.2%
Tolerability: serious adverse events were less common on treatment than on placebo, at 3.9% against 8.8%
Investigators: Wharton and colleagues, OASIS 4 Study Group
Funding: Novo Nordisk. Registration NCT05564117

Published 18 September 2025. Read the abstract on PubMed.

Each set of results stands on its own. The two trials were designed, run and funded separately, over different durations, with very different numbers of participants, in different populations, and using different methods of analysis. Neither included the other treatment as a comparator, and no head to head trial of the two has been published in a weight-management population. The figures above therefore describe how each treatment performed against placebo in its own study, and nothing more than that: they are not a scoreboard and should not be lined up against each other. For completeness, a separate Eli Lilly trial, ACHIEVE-3, did compare orforglipron with oral semaglutide directly, but in adults with type 2 diabetes rather than for weight management, so it does not answer the question most people arrive at this page with.

What the UK licence says

The MHRA authorised Foundayo on 10 August 2026, making the UK the first country in Europe to do so. The Wegovy pill was authorised in June 2026. Both are prescription-only.

	Wegovy pill	Foundayo
Weight management licence	Yes, alongside a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity	Yes, alongside a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity
BMI criteria	Assessed by the prescriber against the current product information	BMI of 30 or above, or 27 to under 30 with at least one weight-related comorbidity such as prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, obstructive sleep apnoea or cardiovascular disease
Type 2 diabetes licence	Not licensed for this in its weight management form	Separately licensed to improve glycaemic control in adults with insufficiently controlled type 2 diabetes
UK strengths	1.5mg, 4mg, 9mg, 25mg	0.8mg, 2.5mg, 5.5mg, 9mg, 14.5mg, 17.2mg film-coated tablets
Titration rule	Stepped up under prescriber guidance	A minimum of one month at each dose level before stepping up
NHS availability	Not available on the NHS at present	Not available. NICE evaluation follows the usual process

Why you will see different Foundayo doses quoted elsewhere. The phase 3 trials, including ATTAIN-1, used a hard capsule formulation at 6mg, 12mg and 36mg. The product licensed and marketed in the UK is a film-coated tablet in the six strengths listed above. So the trial doses and the UK strengths are different things, and any site quoting 36mg as a UK dose is repeating a trial figure rather than the licence.

Interactions worth raising with your prescriber

Orforglipron is handled by CYP3A4 and CYP2J2 and is a substrate of P-gp, OATP1B1 and OATP1B3, which means some common medicines change how much of it reaches your system. The SmPC caps the dose at 9mg when taken with a strong CYP3A4 inhibitor such as clarithromycin, and it advises halving the simvastatin dose. Combinations including ritonavir, telaprevir, rifampicin, phenytoin and St John’s wort are to be avoided. This matters in ordinary life: if a GP or dentist prescribes an antibiotic mid-treatment, say that you take Foundayo. Never adjust your own dose, which is always a prescribing decision.

Primary sources: the Foundayo Summary of Product Characteristics on the electronic medicines compendium (17.2mg presentation, the other five strengths carry their own entries), the patient information leaflet, and the MHRA authorisation of 10 August 2026 as reported by The Pharmaceutical Journal. For the Wegovy pill, see the MHRA approval announcement. Always read the current product information for the specific strength you are prescribed, since these documents are updated.

The economics: similar wholesale cost, different ladders

Few guides cover this part. At wholesale level the two treatments sit in broadly similar territory, so the headline monthly price is unlikely to be the deciding factor between them for most pharmacies. What differs is the shape of the journey, and that is where the real money is.

The Wegovy pill reaches its 25mg maintenance dose in four steps. Foundayo has six strengths, and its licence specifies a minimum of one month at each dose level, so reaching the top of the ladder takes at least five months from starting. More steps means more months spent titrating before you arrive at the dose you will stay on. That has three consequences to understand before you commit:

What it affects	Why the extra steps matter
Time to full effect	A longer ladder means longer before you are on your maintenance dose, so longer before you can fairly judge whether the treatment is working for you.
Total spend before that point	Every titration month is a month paid for. A six step ramp costs more in total to get to maintenance than a four step ramp, even when the monthly prices are comparable.
Where offers land	Introductory discounts cluster on the first order. With a longer ladder, a bigger share of your titration is paid at standard price after that offer expires.

The practical takeaway. Compare the maintenance dose price, not the starting price, and then ask how many months of titration sit between you and that dose. Two treatments with identical maintenance pricing can differ meaningfully in what the first year costs. Our cost guide works this through for the Wegovy pill.

None of this makes the longer ladder a bad thing clinically. Smaller increments can mean gentler titration and better tolerability for some people, and a treatment you stay on beats a cheaper one you abandon. It is a trade-off to go in with your eyes open about, not a mark against either treatment.

What we are not going to tell you

We are not going to declare a winner on effectiveness. The trial numbers above are real, published and properly sourced, but as set out there they cannot be validly compared against each other. Individual response varies enormously, and the question of which suits you belongs with a prescriber who knows your history, your other medicines and your goals.

We also publish no ratings, no star scores and no user testimonials for either treatment. What we can tell you honestly is what each costs, how each is taken, what the published evidence says, and what the practical trade-offs are. Our full standards are in the editorial and review policy.

Frequently asked questions

Is Foundayo cheaper than the Wegovy pill?

It varies by pharmacy and by dose, and the Foundayo market is too new for a stable answer. Compare the live figures: the Wegovy pill above, Foundayo on Dayo. Match maintenance dose to maintenance dose rather than comparing an introductory offer against a standard price.

Can I switch from one to the other?

Only under prescriber guidance. They are different molecules with different dose ladders, so it is a managed change rather than a swap you arrange at checkout. Never start a new treatment using leftover supply of another.

Does Foundayo have the same fasting rules?

No. That is the main practical difference. Orforglipron does not carry the same food and water restrictions that oral semaglutide requires. Always follow the specific instructions in your patient leaflet and from your prescriber rather than assuming.

Are either available on the NHS?

No. At present both are available only on private prescription. Our NHS access guide explains the position and the process that would need to change it.

What about the injections?

If you are open to a weekly injection rather than a daily tablet, that changes the comparison again. See our pill vs injection cost guide, and iGovy for Wegovy injection prices or Monj for Mounjaro.

Keep comparing

Wegovy pill comparison Foundayo prices (Dayo)What the pill costs Pill vs injection How we track prices

Ogovy (Medstack Ltd) is an independent price comparison service. We do not sell, prescribe or dispense medicines, and nothing here is medical advice. Both treatments discussed are prescription-only: suitability is decided by a registered prescriber. Report suspected side effects through the MHRA Yellow Card scheme.

Sources referenced on this page

Linked from the text above:

Read the paper in the NEJM www.nejm.org
Read the abstract on PubMed pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Foundayo Summary of Product Characteristics on the electronic medicines compendium www.medicines.org.uk
patient information leaflet www.medicines.org.uk
MHRA approval announcement www.gov.uk
MHRA Yellow Card scheme yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk

Standing primary references for every Ogovy page: