Monitoring report on US GLP-1 RA prescribing trends shows increased oral semaglutide use.

Background: Limited recent data exist on prescribing patterns and patient characteristics for glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs), an important drug class used as anti-diabetic medication (ADM) for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) and/or anti-obesity medication (AOM) in patients with overweight or obesity. For brevity, we use the term GLP-1 RA to refer to both GLP-1 RA and dual GLP-1 RA/GIP medications. Objective: To describe recent trends in prescribing and dispensing of GLP-1-based medications in the US. Methods: Using a subset of real-world electronic health record (EHR) data from Truveta, a growing collective of health systems that provide more than 18% of all daily clinical care in the US, we identified people who were prescribed a GLP-1-based medication between January 01, 2019 and March 31, 2026. We describe prescribing volumes and patient characteristics over time, by medication, and by FDA-labeled use. Among the subset of patients for whom post-prescription dispensing data is available, we describe the proportion and characteristics of patients who were and were not dispensed a GLP-1 RA following their prescription. Results: 2,855,602 patients were prescribed a GLP-1 RA between January 2019 and March 2026, with 14,738,765 total prescriptions during this period. Overall prescribing rates (GLP-1 RA prescriptions as a proportion of all prescriptions) increased by more than one percentage point from December 2025 to March 2026 (+15.0%), representing the largest quarter-over-quarter percentage point increase observed since the start of the study period in 2019. AOM semaglutide similarly demonstrated its largest quarter-over-quarter percentage point increase during this most recent quarter. Among first-time prescriptions for which use could be established, ADMs accounted for 67.6% and AOMs accounted for 32.4%. First-time AOM prescribing rose by 21.7% from December 2025 to March 2026, with first-time prescribing of AOM semaglutide increasing by more than 50%. This marks the largest quarter-over-quarter increase in first-time AOM semaglutide prescribing since mid-2024. These trends in both overall and first-time AOM semaglutide prescribing are likely driven by the approval of the oral formulation of AOM semaglutide in December 2025.