Scoping review of 41 obesity-drug studies lists cagrilintide plus semaglutide among reviewed therapies

The authors describe a scoping review of human pharmacological studies in individuals with overweight or obesity; no animals were involved. A structured literature search in PubMed and Scopus in May 2025 identified original studies published within the previous five years, and 42 articles representing 41 unique studies, described as predominantly randomized controlled trials, were included in the evidence synthesis. The abstract does not report a pooled number of participants.

The review covered GLP-1 receptor agonists (semaglutide, liraglutide, exenatide, orforglipron), multi-receptor incretin agonists (tirzepatide, retatrutide, survodutide), amylin-based combination therapy described as cagrilintide plus semaglutide, established non-incretin medications, microbiome-targeted therapies, and nutraceutical-based interventions.

Across the included studies, the authors report that GLP-1 receptor agonists consistently demonstrated substantial weight-loss efficacy, with semaglutide achieving approximately 10-16% weight loss, while tirzepatide produced approximately 15-21% weight reduction over treatment durations of 20-70 weeks.

The authors state that emerging multi-receptor incretin agonists also demonstrated promising efficacy, whereas established non-incretin medications, microbiome-targeted therapies, and nutraceutical-based interventions generally produced modest or more heterogeneous outcomes. Gastrointestinal adverse events were described as the most frequently reported across incretin-based therapies.

Cagrilintide appears in this abstract only once, as part of the category "amylin-based combination therapy (cagrilintide plus semaglutide)" among the drug classes the review encompassed. The abstract reports no separate weight-change figure, adverse-event rate, or participant count for that combination, and it does not report any dosing regimen for cagrilintide or for the other medications reviewed.

The authors' overall conclusion is that incretin-based therapies currently provide the greatest weight-loss benefit, while evidence for several emerging pharmacotherapies, microbiome-targeted therapies, and nutraceutical-based interventions remains limited.

This is a scoping review rather than a meta-analysis, so no pooled effect estimates, confidence intervals, or risk-of-bias assessment are reported in the abstract. The search covered two databases, PubMed and Scopus, at a single time point in May 2025 and was restricted to the previous five years, so relevant work outside those bounds would not be captured.

The authors themselves note that evidence for several emerging pharmacotherapies remains limited and call for further well-designed comparative trials, mechanistic studies, and long-term real-world investigations to establish durability, safety, and clinical applicability. The abstract reports no funding source, no author affiliations, and no numeric outcomes specific to cagrilintide.

Cagrilintide, also referred to as AM833 or NNC0174-0833 and studied in combination with semaglutide as CagriSema, is not an FDA-approved drug for any use. That status comes from this site's regulatory review, not from the review article summarized here.