Semaglutide tops dulaglutide when treating patients with type 2 diabetes and CVD
Weekly injections of semaglutide are associated with more significant cardiovascular benefits than dulaglutide in patients with type 2 diabetes and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), according to a new real-world analysis of nearly 60,000 Medicare patients. The full analysis was presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes 2025 Annual Meeting in Austria.
Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist (RA) sold by Novo Nordisk under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic. It has already been associated with a long list of health benefits, including weight loss. This particular study focused on Ozempic.
Dulaglutide, meanwhile, is an established type 2 diabetes drug sold by Eli Lilly and Company under the brand name Trulicity.
This head-to-head study tracked real-world data from 58,336 Medicare patients treated with either semaglutide or dulaglutide. All patients were 66 years old or older and presented with type 2 diabetes in addition to ASCVD.
Overall, weekly injections of semaglutide was linked to reducing the risk of adverse cardiovascular events—defined as a heart attack, stroke or death—by 23% compared to dulaglutide.
“As we age, the risk of experiencing a heart attack, stroke or dying from a cardiovascular event increases,” Filip Krag Knop, MD, PhD, senior vice president and incoming chief medical officer at Novo Nordisk, said in a statement. “At the same time, there are limited clinical data for people living with diabetes and cardiovascular disease aged 66 years or older. These data, showing a 23% risk reduction of a heart attack, stroke and death, fill an important gap and reinforce the well-established clinical evidence of semaglutide. This is great news for older patients as well as healthcare professionals, as these results build on the importance of our randomized clinical trial data assessing the effectiveness of treatments in a real-life setting. This also supports what we already know from our clinical development programs that not all GLP-1 RAs are the same.”
Michael has more than 19 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.