Assembling evidence grade
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Independent evidence before payment.
GLP-1 receptor agonist · also: Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus
Semaglutide carries an Evidence Grade of A (High confidence). The strongest published evidence catalogued is human rct / review.
Grade A rule: Two or more confirmatory human RCTs (an approved product, or completed Phase 3).
The grade reflects the strength of the published evidence, not safety or efficacy. “Confidence” means how settled that grade is given the record — not how likely the compound is to work.
Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist studied extensively in large randomised trials for type-2 diabetes and weight management. Among the compounds catalogued here it sits at the most-studied end of the spectrum, with regulator-approved branded formulations in several jurisdictions.
Animal and in-vitro results are shown separately and must never be read as established human outcomes.
In plain terms: there are 3 randomised human trials here — the strongest kind of evidence. That is about the research, not about any particular seller or batch.
Strongest: randomised or pooled human trials.
Clinical Pharmacokinetics of Semaglutide: A Systematic Review. Drug design, development and therapy, 2024.
Long-term weight loss effects of semaglutide in obesity without diabetes in the SELECT trial. Nature medicine, 2024.
Semaglutide once a week in adults with overweight or obesity, with or without type 2 diabetes in an east Asian population (STEP 6): a randomised, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled, phase 3a trial. The lancet. Diabetes & endocrinology, 2022.
Observational, open-label or small human studies.
none catalogued
Preclinical animal models — not a human outcome.
none catalogued
Cell / tissue studies — not a human outcome.
none catalogued
Proposed mechanism — hypothesis, not evidence of effect.
The Ethics of Ozempic and Wegovy. Journal of medical ethics, 2026.
Natural Weight Loss or "Ozempic Face": Demystifying A Social Media Phenomenon. Journal of drugs in dermatology : JDD, 2024.
Implications of Ozempic and Other Semaglutide Medications for Facial Plastic Surgeons. Facial plastic surgery : FPS, 2023.
As Ozempic's Popularity Soars, Here's What to Know About Semaglutide and Weight Loss. JAMA, 2023.
Wegovy (semaglutide): a new weight loss drug for chronic weight management. Journal of investigative medicine : the official publication of the American Federation for Clinical Research, 2022.
Semaglutide (Ozempic) for weight loss. The Medical letter on drugs and therapeutics, 2021.
Safety of Semaglutide. Frontiers in endocrinology, 2021.
Semaglutide lowers body weight in rodents via distributed neural pathways. JCI insight, 2020.
Semaglutide: First Global Approval. Drugs, 2018.
On “cited by N”: citation counts (Crossref) reflect how often a paper has been referenced — a measure of academic attention, not of validity, safety, or whether a compound works. They do not affect the Evidence Grade, which is set purely by the strength of the evidence tier.
Published human evidence concerns specific approved formulations and supervised dosing. It does not transfer to unbranded research-grade material of unverified identity, purity or concentration.
An approved prescription-only medicine. Buying it without a prescription bypasses medical supervision and the approved supply chain — a vendor selling it as “research use only” is offering a prescription drug with no prescription and no clinical oversight.
PepCred flags any vendor selling this compound without requiring a prescription as a consumer-protection concern. Status reflects regulator records; see the regulatory detail below.
Sample of 8 (not ranked) — see all on ClinicalTrials.gov:
The molecule is FDA-approved (US) as a branded medicine (Ozempic, Rybelsus, Wegovy). The unbranded, research-grade material sold as Semaglutide is a different, unapproved product of unverified identity, purity and concentration.
Reporting volume (not a safety rate): 73,001 adverse-event reports name this ingredient in the FDA FAERS database. FAERS reports are voluntary and unverified, are not a rate, and do not establish that the drug caused the event — high counts usually track high prescribing volume.
PepCred note: Approved branded formulations (FDA, MHRA, EMA) for stated indications.
FDA alert on counterfeit semaglutide entering the supply chain.
Semaglutide is a prescription-only medicine. The lawful way to get it is a GPhC-registered pharmacy that requires a prescription — never a grey-market seller.
An ingredient-name listing is not the licensed branded medicine. These unranked records are shown to expose prescription bypass and other risks, not to suggest where to buy.
None of these is verified for human use.