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# Tirzepatide price rise shifted UK self-paying patients to semaglutide
- URL: https://www.coios.me/tirzepatide-price-rise-shifted-uk-self-paying-patients-to/
- Published: 2026-10-16T13:25:27.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-18T12:16:01.000Z
- Description: Among 1,033,522 UK adults self-funding GLP-1 treatment, semaglutide initiation rose 31 percentage points in the month tirzepatide's list price rose.
- Author: Daniel Ryan
- Tags: Health today, Obesity, diabetes and GLP-1, Revisions and new sources, United Kingdom, #peer-reviewed, #new, #item, #source-2026-10, #score-85

This retrospective cohort study covered 1,033,522 UK adults initiating semaglutide or tirzepatide through the telehealth provider MedExpress. The period ran from May 2024 to January 2026\. Initiation and switching were modelled with segmented interrupted time-series analysis around the September 2025 tirzepatide price increase. Weight trajectories used linear mixed-effects models. Over the whole period 90.2% initiated tirzepatide and 9.8% semaglutide, with higher reach among women than men. In September 2025 semaglutide initiation rose by 31.15 percentage points (95% CI 26.07-36.24) against the projected trend. Switching from tirzepatide to semaglutide rose by 9.26 percentage points (95% CI 7.09-11.42), then attenuated. Estimated 12-month weight loss was 19.93% for tirzepatide (n = 30,763) and 16.40% for semaglutide (n = 979). Follow-up weights covered only a small fraction of the cohort, so weight estimates rest on a selected subgroup.

*Why it is interesting: Price alone moved treatment choice sharply in a self-paying market. One provider reaching over a million adults is itself a measure of GLP-1 uptake outside the NHS.*

Source

[Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 15 October 2026](https://doi.org/10.1111/dom.71410?ref=coios.me)

Paper

Real‐World Treatment Patterns and Weight Outcomes Before and After a Tirzepatide Price Increase in Over One Million Self‐Paying UK Adults With Overweight or Obesity

Authors

Dix S, Mulligan A, Ficarelli M, Brooke E, Rosenior‐Patten O, Chen S et al.

DOI

10.1111/dom.71410

Type

Peer-reviewed article

Design

Retrospective cohort of 1,033,522 adults initiating semaglutide or tirzepatide through one UK telehealth provider, May 2024–Jan 2026; segmented interrupted time-series around the Sept 2025 price rise, mixed-effects weight trajectories

Verdict

New finding

Driver

[Obesity, diabetes and GLP-1](https://www.coios.me/d-obesity-diabetes/)

Driver

[Revisions and new sources](https://www.coios.me/d-data-sources/)

Free full text

[Free to read at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1111/dom.71410?ref=coios.me)