What to Expect at the Wegovy Pill 25mg Maintenance Dose

What is the Wegovy pill maintenance dose?

The maintenance dose of the Wegovy pill is 25mg once daily, taken every morning on an empty stomach. This is the highest licensed strength and the dose you stay on for ongoing treatment.

The Wegovy pill is the tablet form of semaglutide, the same weight loss medication as injectable Wegovy. Both are GLP-1 receptor agonists. That means they copy a gut hormone (GLP-1) your body makes after eating to tell your brain that you feel full.

Semaglutide also works on the part of your brain that controls hunger. With your appetite dialled down, you eat less and lose weight over time.

You do not start treatment on the 25mg dose. The Wegovy pill dosage builds up in four steps so your body can adjust. Treatment begins at 1.5mg once daily for at least a month, then moves to 4mg, then 9mg, and finally 25mg. The Wegovy 25 mg pill is the strength most patients will settle on.

Gradually increasing the dose means your body gets a month to adjust at each strength. The full step-up to this 25mg dose of Wegovy takes a minimum of three months.

Stage	Daily dose	Minimum time at this dose
Starting dose	1.5mg	30 days
Second step	4mg	30 days
Third step	9mg	30 days
Maintenance dose	25mg	Ongoing

The Wegovy tablet was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on 11 June 2026. Its licensed information sets out this dosing schedule. The 25mg tablet is the strength tested in OASIS 4. This was the main clinical trial behind the pill, run in adults with obesity.

What changes when you reach the 25mg maintenance dose?

At 25mg, two things change: your dose stops climbing, and treatment shifts from building up to holding steady. The stomach side effects that come with each increase tend to ease once you reach this stage. Weight loss carries on after this point and slows over the following months, as your body settles at a lower weight.

Why is 25mg the maintenance dose and not higher?

A dose of 50mg brought little extra weight loss and more side effects. Researchers tested the higher dose of semaglutide in the OASIS 1 trial. Adults lost about 15% of their body weight on average, versus around 14% on 25mg in OASIS 4. The gap between the two separate trials works out to roughly one and a half kilograms for someone weighing 100kg.

Oral Wegovy at 50mg tended to bring more stomach side effects, such as nausea. That is why 25mg became the licensed Wegovy pill’s highest dose. It broadly matches the weight loss seen with the 2.4mg Wegovy injection.

This means people already on that injection can usually switch straight to the 25mg tablet.

What results can I expect at the 25mg maintenance dose?

On the 25mg maintenance dose, someone starting at 100kg lost around 14kg on average in the main trial. In the OASIS 4 trial, adults taking the 25mg pill lost 13.6% of their body weight by 64 weeks. The placebo group lost only 2.2%. A placebo is an inactive pill given for comparison. A 13.6% average loss is well past the 5% mark tied to lower blood pressure and cholesterol.

Among people who kept taking the pill as intended, the average loss reached 16.6%. More than a quarter lost at least a fifth of their body weight. This 3% difference shows how important it is to make sure you take your medication correctly.

Weight loss on the 25mg dose builds steadily over many months. The fastest drop in OASIS 4 came roughly between weeks 8 and 24. Weight loss then slowed and plateaued towards the one-year mark, as the body settled at a lower weight. Individual Wegovy pill results vary widely, with some people losing far more than the average and others much less.

Do side effects improve at the maintenance dose?

Nausea affected nearly half of people in the main trial, yet few patients stopped treatment because of it. The most common side effects of Wegovy are stomach-related: nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and constipation. Most are mild to moderate, and they pass quickly. They cluster around the dose increases rather than the maintenance phase.

Only about 1 in 30 people in OASIS 4 stopped treatment for good because of them. Give it a few months, and the early nausea usually fades, as your body adjusts to semaglutide.

Some people still notice mild nausea or changed bowel habits further in, though milder than during the build-up. Your patient information leaflet lists the full range of side effects and what to do about each. Speak to our clinical team if side effects are making daily life hard at any dose.

How long do I stay on the maintenance dose?

Most people stay on the 25mg maintenance dose for the long term. Obesity is a long-term condition, and weight tends to return when semaglutide stops.

Semaglutide manages weight while you take it. People spend far longer at the maintenance stage than they do climbing to it.

At this stage, the dose has one job: keeping enough semaglutide in your body to hold appetite and weight steady. This is the core of long-term weight management. Many people maintain their weight at 25mg, but this is not the only option. If you reach your target weight and are still losing, your prescriber may reduce you to a lower dose for the maintenance phase. The right maintenance dose is the lowest one that holds your weight where you want it.

The longest studies used the semaglutide injection, the same medicine in a different form. In the two-year STEP 5 trial, people who kept taking it lost about 15% of their body weight. That loss held, with little regain between year one and year two.

The STEP 4 trial tested what happens when treatment stops. People who came off semaglutide regained about 7% of their body weight over the next year. Those who continued taking it kept losing weight. A separate STEP 1 follow-up found people regained about two-thirds of their lost weight within a year of stopping. Stopping semaglutide is likely to cause some regain, and it helps to go in expecting that.

When you come off semaglutide, hunger signals climb back toward where they were before treatment. Rising appetite is one of the main drivers of weight regain. This is why the groundwork you lay while on treatment matters so much. If you are thinking about coming off the medication, the best time to prepare is well before you stop: the habits and lifestyle changes that hold your weight need to be firmly in place and settled, not still forming. It is also worth working with your prescriber to taper down gradually rather than stopping abruptly, and working out how long to take the Wegovy pill.

When should I see a doctor?

Most side effects at the maintenance dose are mild, but some symptoms need prompt medical attention. For mild, ongoing problems, our clinical team is your first point of contact.

Get in touch about nausea or vomiting that will not settle. The same goes for mild diarrhoea, constipation, or reflux. You can also ask whether to stay on your dose.

Some symptoms need a same-day check from your GP or NHS 111. Contact them if you notice signs of:

gallbladder trouble, such as yellowing skin or severe pain in the upper-right side of your stomach
neck swelling, a hoarse voice, or trouble swallowing.
vomiting stops you from keeping fluids down for more than six hours.

Stop the Wegovy pill and call 999 or go to A&E if you notice any of the following:

severe stomach pain that spreads to your back can be a sign of pancreatitis.
sudden loss of vision in one eye also needs emergency care.
severe allergic reaction or signs of serious dehydration.

Mental health matters here, too. If you ever have thoughts of harming yourself, go to A&E and ask for the CRISIS team.

Frequently asked questions

What is the maintenance dose of the Wegovy pill?

The maintenance dose of the Wegovy pill is 25mg once daily, the highest licensed strength. You reach it after stepping up through 1.5mg, 4mg, and 9mg, with at least a month at each. You usually reach 25mg after about three months, then stay there for ongoing treatment.

Is Wegovy 7.2mg a stronger version of the pill?

No, Wegovy 7.2mg is a higher-dose injection, not a pill. The Wegovy pen delivers the 7.2mg injectable form of semaglutide, studied over 72 weeks in the STEP UP trial. The pill comes in one maintenance strength only, which is 25mg.

The Wegovy injection maintenance dose works on a different scale from the tablet. Our prescribers can explain which option suits you.

How much does the Wegovy pill 25 mg cost in the UK?

The Wegovy pill 25 mg cost in the UK has not been confirmed yet. As of June 2026, the pill is approved but not yet on sale, and it is not funded on the NHS. When it launches, access will be private at first, with pricing set by manufacturers and pharmacies.

NHS funding would need a separate review by NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. That review has not yet started.

How long was the Wegovy pill studied for?

The main Wegovy pill trial, OASIS 4, ran for 64 weeks of treatment. This is where the 25mg weight loss results come from. The semaglutide injection has longer studies behind it, including the two-year STEP 5 trial. The two-year evidence comes from the injection, since the pill has not been studied that far yet.

Key takeaways

Most people climb to 25mg and stay there while they work toward their weight loss goals. Once you reach the weight you are aiming for, 25mg is also the dose most people stay on to maintain.
Getting to 25mg takes around three months, stepping up through 1.5mg, 4mg, and 9mg with a month at each.
Weight loss keeps going well after you reach 25mg: OASIS 4 averaged 13.6%, rising to 16.6% among those who kept taking it.
Side effects are worst during the build-up, not at 25mg: only about 1 in 30 people left OASIS 4 because of stomach effects.
Plan for the long term. Obesity is a long-term condition, and weight tends to return when semaglutide stops. Successfully ending treatment requires planning and commitment and it shouldn’t be treated like a short course.