Liraglutide in obesity and overweight in adults: effect on the anchor outcome
In the population defined for obesity and overweight in adults, what is the effect of Liraglutide compared with the comparator used in its contributing trials on the anchor outcome for this indication?
Templated review frame. This review question was generated by crossing an indication with a compound for which contributing trials exist. Its prose frame is templated and is shared with other questions of the same shape. Its included studies, its summary of findings and its certainty rating are computed from the underlying records and are not templated. The Institute publishes these questions because the alternative is to leave a question the document set can answer unanswered, and it labels them because the alternative is to present a templated frame as an authored one.
§1Abstract
§1.1Review question
In the population defined for obesity and overweight in adults, what is the effect of Liraglutide compared with the comparator used in its contributing trials on the anchor outcome for this indication?
§1.2PICO frame
Table 1. The registered PICO frame. Any change made after protocol registration is recorded in the amendment log at §5 and is identified there as post hoc.
| Element | As registered |
|---|---|
| Population | Excess adiposity sufficient to impair health, operationalised in the pivotal incretin programmes as a body-mass index of 30 kg/m² or above, or 27 kg/m² or above with at least one weight-related comorbidity. |
| Intervention | Liraglutide administered as subcutaneous once daily. |
| Comparator | The comparator used in each contributing trial, reported per trial rather than pooled across comparator types. |
| Outcomes | Anchor outcome for this indication: Percentage change in body weight from baseline. Additional outcomes: Proportion achieving ≥5 %, ≥10 %, ≥15 % and ≥20 % weight reduction; Change in waist circumference; Change in systolic blood pressure. |
§1.3Method in brief
A review of the effects of an intervention on pre-specified outcomes, with a quantitative synthesis where the contributing studies are sufficiently similar. The protocol was registered with the Institute's secretariat before the search was executed. The search was run on 31 May 2026 across 8 sources and is reproduced in full at §2. Screening, extraction and certainty assessment were performed independently by two members of the secretariat with disagreement resolved by a third.[1,2]
§1.4Conclusion
High certainty evidence from 3 contributing trials bears on the effect of Liraglutide on the anchor outcome for obesity and overweight in adults. The estimate the Institute carries in the monograph is: −8.0 % body weight at 56 weeks with 3.0 mg versus −2.6 % with placebo. Consistent across the SCALE programme. Inferior to semaglutide 2.4 mg in a direct comparison (STEP 8).
The conclusion rests on 3 contributing studies, listed with their extracted data at §3 and summarised outcome by outcome at §4.
§1.5Limitations
References cited on this page
References are numbered in order of first citation in this document. Each superscript in the text links to its entry below.
- Pi-Sunyer X, Astrup A, Fujioka K, Greenway F, Halpern A, Krempf M, Lau DCW, le Roux CW, Violante Ortiz R, Jensen CB, Wilding JPH. A randomized, controlled trial of 3.0 mg of liraglutide in weight management. New England Journal of Medicine 2015;373(1):11–22. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1411892 · PMID 26132939
- Marso SP, Daniels GH, Brown-Frandsen K, Kristensen P, Mann JFE, Nauck MA, Nissen SE, Pocock S, Poulter NR, Ravn LS, Steinberg WM, Stockner M, Zinman B, Bergenstal RM, Buse JB. Liraglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in type 2 diabetes. New England Journal of Medicine 2016;375(4):311–322. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1603827 · PMID 27295427
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