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Compound Evidence InstituteEvidence synthesis · established 2023Graded assessments of compounds, trials, methods and supply
Document set current to 30 July 2026
Evidence synthesis · Intervention review

Semaglutide, oral in type 2 diabetes mellitus: durability of effect

In the population defined for type 2 diabetes mellitus, is the effect of Semaglutide, oral maintained across the full duration of the contributing trials?

Document identifier
CEI-ES-135
Series
Evidence synthesis
Version
2.1
Published
06 Feb 2025
Last reviewed
06 Aug 2025
Next review
06 Feb 2027
Identifier
10.71829/cei.syn.135
Certainty
High
Cycle
2025 Q1
Review type
Intervention review
Search executed
09 Oct 2024

Templated review frame. This review question was generated by crossing an indication with a compound for which contributing trials exist. Its prose frame is templated and is shared with other questions of the same shape. Its included studies, its summary of findings and its certainty rating are computed from the underlying records and are not templated. The Institute publishes these questions because the alternative is to leave a question the document set can answer unanswered, and it labels them because the alternative is to present a templated frame as an authored one.

§1Abstract

§1.1Review question

In the population defined for type 2 diabetes mellitus, is the effect of Semaglutide, oral maintained across the full duration of the contributing trials?

§1.2PICO frame

Table 1. The registered PICO frame. Any change made after protocol registration is recorded in the amendment log at §5 and is identified there as post hoc.

ElementAs registered
PopulationA disorder of glucose regulation characterised by insulin resistance with relative insulin deficiency, diagnosed by glycated haemoglobin, fasting plasma glucose or oral glucose tolerance criteria.
InterventionSemaglutide, oral administered as oral once daily, fasted, with no more than 120 ml of water and at least 30 minutes before other intake.
ComparatorThe comparator used in each contributing trial, reported per trial rather than pooled across comparator types.
OutcomesAnchor outcome for this indication: Change in HbA1c (%, mmol/mol). Additional outcomes: Proportion achieving HbA1c <7.0 % and ≤6.5 %; Change in fasting serum glucose; Change in body weight.

§1.3Method in brief

A review of the effects of an intervention on pre-specified outcomes, with a quantitative synthesis where the contributing studies are sufficiently similar. The protocol was registered with the Institute's secretariat before the search was executed. The search was run on 9 October 2024 across 8 sources and is reproduced in full at §2. Screening, extraction and certainty assessment were performed independently by two members of the secretariat with disagreement resolved by a third.[1,2]

§1.4Conclusion

High certainty evidence bears on whether the effect of Semaglutide, oral in type 2 diabetes mellitus is maintained across the randomised period. The contributing trials range in duration and the Institute reports the trajectory per trial rather than pooling across durations, because a mean at 36 weeks and a mean at 104 weeks are not estimates of the same quantity.

The conclusion rests on 3 contributing studies, listed with their extracted data at §3 and summarised outcome by outcome at §4.

§1.5Limitations

References cited on this page

References are numbered in order of first citation in this document. Each superscript in the text links to its entry below.

  1. Husain M, Birkenfeld AL, Donsmark M, Dungan K, Eliaschewitz FG, Franco DR, Jeppesen OK, Lingvay I, Mosenzon O, Pedersen SD, Tack CJ, Thomsen M, Vilsbøll T, Warren ML, Bain SC. Oral semaglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes. New England Journal of Medicine 2019;381(9):841–851. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1901118 · PMID 31185157
  2. Aroda VR, Rosenstock J, Terauchi Y, Altuntas Y, Lalic NM, Morales Villegas EC, Jeppesen OK, Christiansen E, Hertz CL, Haluzík M. PIONEER 1: randomized clinical trial of the efficacy and safety of oral semaglutide monotherapy in comparison with placebo in patients with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care 2019;42(9):1724–1732. doi:10.2337/dc19-0749 · PMID 31186300

Identifiers are reproduced only where the Institute holds them. Where a digital object identifier or PubMed identifier is not shown, the Institute has recorded the journal and year and has not constructed an identifier.

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