Rybelsus, first oral GLP-1 (2019)
Novo Nordisk won US approval for Rybelsus, oral semaglutide, the first GLP-1 drug that could be taken as a pill rather than injected. It required once-daily dosing and careful fasting rules.
Rybelsus gave Novo an oral diabetes option and established that oral peptide delivery could work at scale.
It set the oral GLP-1 bar at daily dosing, which now looks like the constraint HRS-1596 aims to break.
Novo pioneered oral GLP-1 delivery with a daily pill. HRS-1596 targets the jump to once-weekly oral dosing, extending the same playbook.
