Saxenda vs Trulicity: Daily Obesity Drug, Weekly Diabetes Drug
Saxenda (liraglutide, Novo Nordisk) vs Trulicity (dulaglutide, Eli Lilly)
Last verified May 2026
The verdict
Saxenda is approved for weight management and reported −8.0% at 56 weeks in SCALE Obesity; Trulicity is a diabetes drug reporting −3.0 to −4.6 kg at 52 weeks in AWARD. Both are injections, one daily and one weekly. Trulicity holds the cardiovascular result. Neither has a useful cash-pay tier — roughly $1,349 against $987 — and both have largely been overtaken commercially by the newer weight-management drugs.
Side-by-side comparison
| Field | Saxenda | Trulicity |
|---|---|---|
| Who makes it, and what it is approved to treat | Novo Nordisk; long-term weight management at a BMI of 30, or 27 with a weight-related condition | Eli Lilly; type 2 diabetes only |
| How it works | A GLP-1 receptor agonist built as a near-copy of the human hormone | A GLP-1 receptor agonist fused to an antibody fragment, which is what makes it last a week |
| How often you inject | Every day under the skin, stepping up from 0.6 to 3.0 mg across five weeks | Once a week under the skin, stepping 0.75 to 1.5 to 3.0 to 4.5 mg |
| Weight lost in the pivotal trial, at the top dose | -8.0 kg, about -8.0%, over 56 weeks (SCALE Obesity, 3.0 mg) | -3.0 to -4.6 kg over 52 weeks in type 2 diabetes (AWARD program, 4.5 mg) |
| Whether a trial proved it prevents heart attacks and strokes | None for this dose. LEADER cut major cardiac events 13%, but tested liraglutide at the 1.8 mg diabetes dose | REWIND cut them 12% in type 2 diabetes, with or without existing heart disease |
| Youngest approved age | 12 and over, for obesity at or above the 95th percentile | 10 and over, for type 2 diabetes |
| If your kidneys are impaired | No dose change needed. The label warns about dehydration and sudden kidney injury | AWARD-7 held blood sugar down in moderate-to-severe kidney disease, at filtration rates of 15 to 59 |
| What it costs if you pay cash | About $1,349/mo retail, with no manufacturer cash program for this product | About $987/mo list, with a savings card for commercially insured diabetes patients |
What each one costs in the compounded market
Standing monthly cash prices from the 556 sellers on this register. These are compounded preparations, not the approved products compared above.
Saxenda — liraglutide
from $160 /mo
3 sellers publish a standing price; the median is $214 a month.
Trulicity — dulaglutide
No seller on this register publishes a compounded price for it. For a drug still in trials that is expected — and anyone selling it anyway is doing so outside the system this register covers.
⚠ A compounded preparation is not the approved product. No agency has reviewed that specific preparation for safety, effectiveness or manufacturing quality, and the legal ground under compounding these molecules narrowed when the shortages closed. The price gap is real, and so is the difference in oversight. Every seller, with its price record.
Frequently asked questions
Are Saxenda and Trulicity the same drug?
No. Saxenda is liraglutide and Trulicity is dulaglutide — different molecules. Results with one do not predict results with the other.
Is Saxenda or Trulicity cheaper?
On the manufacturers' own cash pricing: Saxenda at About $1,349/mo retail, with no manufacturer cash program for this product, Trulicity at About $987/mo list, with a savings card for commercially insured diabetes patients. ⚠ That is the list-price comparison, and it is not what most people pay. What you actually pay depends on whether your plan covers it, which formulary tier it sits in, and whether you have met your deductible — and for many people the honest comparison is between an insured copay and a cash-pay compounded alternative rather than between these two figures.
What does a compounded version of each actually cost?
Across the 556 sellers in this register, the cheapest standing monthly cash prices we hold are liraglutide from $160 a month. ⛔ A compounded preparation is not the approved product: no agency has reviewed that specific preparation for safety, effectiveness or manufacturing quality, and the legal ground under compounding these molecules narrowed once the shortages closed. The price gap is real and so is the difference in oversight.
Can I switch from Saxenda to Trulicity?
Yes, with a prescriber. Expect to re-titrate from the bottom of the new drug's ladder rather than starting where you left off: these are different molecules and tolerance to one does not transfer to the other. Both the old drug's washout and the new drug's schedule apply.
Which one should I ask for?
That is a prescriber's call, and anyone answering it from a table is guessing. What a page like this can do is tell you what the trials measured, what the manufacturers charge, and where the evidence is still missing, so the conversation starts from the record rather than from an advertisement.
References
- 1.Pi-Sunyer X, Astrup A, Fujioka K, Greenway F, Halpern A, et al. A Randomized, Controlled Trial of 3.0 mg of Liraglutide in Weight Management (SCALE Obesity and Prediabetes). N Engl J Med. 2015. PMID: 26132939.
- 2.Gerstein HC, Colhoun HM, Dagenais GR, Diaz R, Lakshmanan M, et al. Dulaglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in type 2 diabetes (REWIND): a double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial. Lancet. 2019. PMID: 31189511.
- 3.Marso SP, Daniels GH, Brown-Frandsen K, Kristensen P, Mann JFE, et al. Liraglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes in Type 2 Diabetes (LEADER). N Engl J Med. 2016. PMID: 27295427.
- 4.Tuttle KR, Lakshmanan MC, Rayner B, Busch RS, Zimmermann AG, et al. Dulaglutide versus insulin glargine in patients with type 2 diabetes and moderate-to-severe chronic kidney disease (AWARD-7): a multicentre, open-label, randomised trial. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2018. PMID: 29910024.
- 5.Novo Nordisk. SAXENDA (liraglutide) injection — FDA prescribing information. DailyMed (NIH/NLM). 2025. https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?setid=3946d389-0926-4f77-a708-0acb8153b143
- 6.Eli Lilly and Company. TRULICITY (dulaglutide) injection — FDA prescribing information. DailyMed (NIH/NLM). 2025. https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?setid=463050bd-2b1c-40f5-b3c3-0a04bb433309
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See the full drug-vs-drug verdict index or provider rankings.