# Semaglutide Dose and Dosage: What the Label and Trials Document > Semaglutide dose and dosage as documented in the label and trials: the titration schedule, the injection vs oral semaglutide, half-life, and compounded semaglutide. Cited, not advice. The titration schedules, routes, and half-life logged from the label and trial protocols. Third person throughout. ## Read this first This page logs the Semaglutide dose and dosage figures that appear in the approved label and in published trials. It is a record of what was studied and what the label documents — not a recommendation, and not instructions for anyone. Nothing here tells a reader what to take. The pattern across uses is the same: start low, raise the dose slowly. Doctors and trials begin at a small dose and step it up every few weeks. The slow ramp exists mainly to limit nausea, which clusters around each increase [16]. The injection is taken once a week; the tablet is taken once a day on an empty stomach. The drug stays in the body a long time — a half-life of about a week [12]. What follows is documented dosing, by route. ## Semaglutide dose — the documented titration #### Semaglutide dose The semaglutide dose is escalated in steps. For chronic weight management, the documented subcutaneous schedule escalates stepwise: 0.25 mg once weekly for weeks 1-4, then 0.5 mg (weeks 5-8), 1.0 mg (weeks 9-12), 1.7 mg (weeks 13-16), and a 2.4 mg once-weekly maintenance dose. The 2.4 mg dose is the one studied in STEP 1, where it produced a mean -14.9% body-weight change at 68 weeks [1]. For type 2 diabetes, the documented subcutaneous schedule starts at 0.25 mg once weekly (an initiation, non-therapeutic dose), then 0.5 mg, then 1.0 mg maintenance, with a 2.0 mg dose studied in the SUSTAIN FORTE program. These are label- and protocol-documented figures, recorded here in the third person. ## Semaglutide dosage by injection vs the oral route #### Semaglutide dosage Semaglutide dosage splits by route. #### Semaglutide injection The semaglutide injection is subcutaneous and once weekly — the route used in STEP, SUSTAIN-6, SELECT, and FLOW [1][2][3][6]. The week-long half-life is what allows once-weekly dosing [12]. #### Oral semaglutide Oral semaglutide is a once-daily tablet co-formulated with an absorption enhancer called SNAC (sodium N-(8-[2-hydroxybenzoyl]amino)caprylate), which transiently raises local stomach pH so the peptide can be absorbed [21]. Its documented type 2 diabetes schedule is 3 mg daily for 30 days, then 7 mg, then 14 mg — taken on an empty stomach, about 30 minutes before the first food, drink, or other oral medication, with no more than ~120 mL of water [21]. Higher oral doses (25 mg and 50 mg once daily) were studied in obesity research programs. ## Half-life and how long it stays in the system Semaglutide's elimination half-life is approximately one week (commonly cited as ~165-168 hours) for both the subcutaneous and oral forms, with effectively complete clearance roughly five weeks after the final dose [12]. Two structural features drive this: strong, reversible albumin binding via the C18 fatty di-acid side chain, and DPP-4 resistance from the position-8 substitution [12]. The long tail is also why label guidance advises stopping well before a planned pregnancy [11]. ## Oral semaglutide bioavailability and why fasted dosing matters Oral semaglutide's bioavailability is low — roughly 0.4-1% even with SNAC [12][21]. That is the documented reason the tablet must be taken fasted with minimal water: food, drink, or other medication in the stomach can substantially reduce how much is absorbed, and therefore the effect [21]. This is a formulation requirement, not a toxicity. A separate review found that the drug's slowed gastric emptying generally does not cause clinically significant interactions, while advising monitoring for narrow-therapeutic-index oral drugs during titration [22]. ## Compounded semaglutide Compounded semaglutide is semaglutide prepared by a compounding pharmacy rather than the approved manufactured product. During a federally declared shortage (roughly 2022 to early 2025), compounding pharmacies were permitted to produce it; that pathway was curtailed once the shortage was declared resolved in early 2025 [11]. Compounded preparations fall outside the approved-product evidence base. The documented concerns during the shortage included dosing errors, adverse events requiring hospitalization, and products with unverified or non-pharmaceutical active ingredients [5]. This site logs that as a regulatory and safety distinction; it does not evaluate, endorse, or source any product. --- A terminal-clean log of the semaglutide trial record — the STEP, SELECT, SUSTAIN-6 and FLOW figures committed to source, the emerging alcohol-craving lines flagged as early, and the unconfirmed signals left in plain view; no clinic behind the console, no script written, and nothing here dosed, compounded, or sold.