You have probably heard of Ozempic and the other weight loss injections by now. For many people, the thought of a weekly needle is enough to put them off even asking a doctor about it.
So drugmakers are racing to put the same kind of medicine into a pill.
Viking Therapeutics said on October 14, 2026, that it had launched the final trial stage of its once-daily weight loss pill, VK2735. The Phase 3 program, called SUNRISE, will enroll about 1,120 adults with obesity and run for 68 weeks.
VK2735 acts on two gut hormones, called GLP-1 and GIP, that help the brain and pancreas handle appetite and blood sugar. Ozempic acts on just one of them. Eli Lilly's injectable Mounjaro works on both, like the new pill.
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What the pill showed in Phase 2
The pill's earlier trial, presented at the European Congress on Obesity in May 2026, enrolled 280 adults. At the highest dose, they lost an average of 12.2 percent of body weight over 13 weeks. Only 1.3 percent was lost on placebo.
Up to 80 percent of those on the pill shed at least a tenth of their starting weight, against 5 percent on placebo.
Weight loss started in the first week. It kept building through the trial, with no sign of leveling off.
Side effects were mostly mild to moderate and mainly hit the stomach, in line with other drugs in this class. About one in five people on the pill dropped out because of side effects, versus 13 percent on placebo.
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How it compares with the injections
Viking is also testing VK2735 as a weekly shot in a separate Phase 3 program called VANQUISH. In the injectable Phase 2, published in the journal Obesity in January 2026, participants lost up to 14.7 percent of their body weight in 13 weeks.
A longer follow-up pushed those injectable numbers higher. After 21 weeks of weekly dosing, weight loss landed in the 16 to 19 percent range.
For a yardstick, semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy, cut body weight by an average of 14.9 percent over 68 weeks in its pivotal STEP 1 trial, published in The New England Journal of Medicine 2021.
What Phase 3 is testing
The SUNRISE program is split into two trials. SUNRISE-1 enrolls adults with obesity who do not have type 2 diabetes. SUNRISE-2 enrolls adults with obesity who do have type 2 diabetes.
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Each study compares three oral doses, 27.5 mg, 35 mg and 55 mg, against placebo once a day. The main question is how much weight people lose after 68 weeks compared with placebo, the same yardstick Wegovy was approved on.
When the pill might be available
Nothing is approved yet. A Phase 3 trial that runs 68 weeks and is just getting started means pivotal data are at least two years away. If the data hold up, a US Food and Drug Administration review would follow before any approval.
For now, the GLP-1 options on pharmacy shelves remain injections, and any decision about whether to try one should be made with your doctor.
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This article is made and published by Ida-Marie Palm Varbæk, who may have used AI in the preparation.