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Compound Evidence InstituteEvidence synthesis · established 2023Graded assessments of compounds, trials, methods and supply
Document set current to 30 July 2026
Trial abstract

SUSTAIN-6 — structured trial abstract

SUSTAIN-6 — Semaglutide in cardiovascular and type 2 diabetes: event-driven cardiovascular outcome trial

Document identifier
CEI-TR-0015
Series
Trial abstract
Version
3.3
Published
27 Feb 2023
Last reviewed
27 Aug 2023
Next review
27 Aug 2025
Identifier
10.71829/cei.trial.15
Certainty
High
Cycle
2023 Q1
Phase
Phase 3
Status
Reported

§1Structured abstract

§1.1Objective

To evaluate Semaglutide in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular risk reduction and type 2 diabetes mellitus, against the comparator specified in §2, with the primary endpoint stated below.

§1.2Design

Design
Randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, event-driven cardiovascular outcome trial
Masking
Double-blind with independent endpoint adjudication
Phase
Phase 3
Randomised participants
3,297
Duration of the primary analysis period
104 weeks
Sponsor class
Manufacturer-sponsored
Registry identifier
not reproduced — see the note in §1.5

§1.3Primary endpoint

Time to first occurrence of a three-point major adverse cardiovascular event composite

§1.4Principal result

Hazard ratio 0.74 (95 % CI 0.58 to 0.95); designed to exclude harm rather than to establish benefit.[1]

A pre-approval safety trial powered for non-inferiority. Retinopathy complications were more frequent with semaglutide in participants with pre-existing retinopathy and rapid glycaemic improvement, and the Institute reproduces that finding wherever the trial is cited.

§1.5Provenance of this abstract

Table 1. Field-by-field provenance. The Institute records which fields are extracted from a source and which are its own reconstruction, so that a reader can tell the two apart without leaving the page.

FieldProvenanceNote
Design, phase, duration, primary endpointExtractedReproduced from the published report or the registry record.
Randomised participantsExtractedReproduced as published.
Principal resultExtractedReproduced as published, with the confidence interval where the Institute holds it.
Centres, countries and baseline characteristicsReconstructedDerived by the Institute from the design class and the randomised total. Presented in §2 as an illustrative operational profile and marked as such. These figures are not published characteristics of this trial.
Certainty assessmentInstitute judgementThe Institute’s own domain-by-domain assessment, with reasoning recorded against each domain in §4.
Registry identifierNot heldThe Institute does not reproduce a registry identifier it has not verified and never constructs one. Documents are referenced by the Institute’s own identifier.

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.

  1. Marso SP, Bain SC, Consoli A, Eliaschewitz FG, Jódar E, Leiter LA, Lingvay I, Rosenstock J, Seufert J, Warren ML, Woo V, Hansen O, Holst AG, Pettersson J, Vilsbøll T. Semaglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes. New England Journal of Medicine 2016;375(19):1834–1844. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1607141 · PMID 27633186

Identifiers are reproduced only where the Institute holds them. Where a digital object identifier or PubMed identifier is not shown, the Institute has recorded the journal and year and has not constructed an identifier.

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