Liraglutide

How a course is commonly described

1. 1
   Week 1: 0.6 mgClinical

   Both labels start every patient at 0.6 mg once daily for one week, a step the Victoza label describes as intended to reduce gastrointestinal reactions rather than to control glucose. Community timelines report appetite changes in this week even though no weight effect is expected.

2. 2
   Weeks 2-4: 1.2, 1.8 and 2.4 mgClinical

   The diabetes ladder stops at 1.2 mg, or 1.8 mg if more glucose lowering is needed, while the weight-management ladder continues through 1.8 and 2.4 mg with one week per step. The label allows any step to be held longer for tolerability, and this is the window in which nausea peaks in both trial and community accounts.

3. 3
   Weeks 5-16: full doseCommunity-reported

   The 3 mg maintenance dose is reached at week 5 and the label builds in a checkpoint at 16 weeks, after which adults who have lost less than 4% of baseline weight are told to stop. Community timelines place the settling of gastrointestinal effects and the first clear scale movement in this stretch, with the 5% threshold typically crossed at 12-16 weeks.

4. 4
   Weeks 17-56: trial endpointClinical

   The SCALE Obesity trial measured its primary endpoint at 56 weeks, where the 3 mg group had lost a mean 8.4 kg against 2.8 kg on placebo and 63.2% had lost at least 5%. This is the exposure behind the weight-management label, and the curve was still drifting down slowly at the end.

5. 5
   Years 1-4: continuous useClinical

   LEADER kept patients on up to 1.8 mg for a median of 3.8 years, with the cardiovascular benefit emerging over that horizon, and the prediabetes subgroup of SCALE Obesity stayed on 3 mg for 160 weeks. Neither program included a planned break, so the labels describe treatment as ongoing rather than cycled.

6. 6
   Stopping and missed dosesClinical

   The labels give one rule for gaps: after more than 3 days without a dose, restart at 0.6 mg and climb the ladder again. SCALE Diabetes and SCALE Teens both followed participants for 12 to 26 weeks after withdrawal and recorded weight and BMI moving back toward baseline, which is why community sources describe regain rather than a taper.

• Both labels describe continuous once-daily use with no planned breaks. The only restart rule is that a gap of more than 3 days means going back to 0.6 mg and re-escalating, and the Saxenda label tells adults to stop altogether if 16 weeks on 3 mg has not produced 4% weight loss.
• The 13-hour half-life means each step reaches a steady level within a few days, which is why the ladder moves weekly rather than every four weeks as with the once-weekly GLP-1 drugs, and why missed days reduce exposure quickly.
• The approved products are 6 mg/mL pens that dial fixed doses. Research vials and compounded copies rely on manual reconstitution math, and in April 2026 the FDA proposed excluding liraglutide from the 503B bulks list, narrowing the legal routes for compounded product even further.