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Report-stream question · eight GLP-1 brands

Why has my GLP-1 stopped working?

You are not the only one. Reports filed under the term drug ineffective are 6.6% of everything sent to FDA about Zepbound, the highest of the 8 GLP-1 brands here. All 8 carry the term, and on six of them it ranks inside the twenty most-reported.

Source: FDA side-effect reports, read 2026-08-17

That is not a failure rate. Nobody files a report to say the drug worked, so the people it worked for are missing from the bottom of the fraction. A share of reports only tells you what the reports were about.

It is also not one thing. A drug ineffective report can come from a doctor, a pharmacist, a drug company or a person at home. The words cover a stalled scale, a blood sugar that did not move, and a pen that turned out empty.

Across FDA reports

Products in the table

8

Carrying the term

8

Known only as a ceiling

0

Highest — Zepbound

6.6%

Which products have FDA reports for drug ineffective

One FDA adverse-event term compared across eight brands. Each percentage uses that product’s own report total, so the columns should not be pooled.

◆ drug ineffective — share of each product’s own reportsShare of that product’s reports
8Exact values — 8 rows in the data table
drug ineffective — share of each product’s own reports
ProductShare of that product’s reports
Zepboundtirzepatide6.6% of Zepbound reports
Saxendaliraglutide5.3% of Saxenda reports
Trulicitydulaglutide4.2% of Trulicity reports
Wegovysemaglutide3.6% of Wegovy reports
Victozaliraglutide2.9% of Victoza reports
Mounjarotirzepatide2.6% of Mounjaro reports
Ozempicsemaglutide2.3% of Ozempic reports
Rybelsussemaglutide2.2% of Rybelsus reports

Hatched, open-ended bars are ceilings rather than measurements. Read from FDA on 2026-08-17.

A dashed row is not a zero. The snapshot keeps each product’s 25 most-reported terms, so a term missing from that list was either never reported or reported and ranked 26th. All this page can prove is that it sits at or below the 25th, and that is what the row says.

Every share above is a share of that product’s own reports. It is never a share of the people who took it, because nobody knows how many that is. Two products can differ here for reasons that have nothing to do with either drug.

What FDA reports show across eight brands

Zepbound sits highest and Rybelsus lowest, and every brand in between carries the term. The spread runs about threefold, which is narrow next to the spreads on other terms.

A term this evenly spread is worth noticing for the opposite reason to a term that diverges. Nothing about the device, the molecule or the company sorts these rows. Whatever produces a drug ineffective report is common to all eight products.

Weight increased is in the same table. On six of the eight brands it is among the stored terms. People reported gaining weight on a drug they took to lose it. That is a real thing people file, and worth knowing before you decide your own case is odd.

The same ruler, held against something else

Weight decreased is the term for the drug doing what it was taken for. It sits in the same table so the two can be read together.

◆ weight decreased — share of each product’s own reportsShare of that product’s reports
8Exact values — 8 rows in the data table
weight decreased — share of each product’s own reports
ProductShare of that product’s reports
Ozempicsemaglutide6.3% of Ozempic reports
Victozaliraglutide4.8% of Victoza reports
Rybelsussemaglutide4.7% of Rybelsus reports
Trulicitydulaglutide3.9% of Trulicity reports
Mounjarotirzepatide2.2% of Mounjaro reports
Wegovysemaglutidebelow 2.0% of Wegovy reports
Saxendaliraglutidebelow 1.9% of Saxenda reports
Zepboundtirzepatidebelow 1.9% of Zepbound reports

The same eight products, the same snapshot, a different term. Read from FDA on 2026-08-17.

What could make this number move without the drug changing

Supply and money, mostly. Two of the years in this snapshot were shortage years. Somebody who could not fill a prescription has a real reason to file a report saying it did nothing.

Dose may also matter. These products begin below the doses tested for long-term results and increase over time. FDA reports do not record which dose step a person was on.

FDA report shares cannot tell whether a drug stopped working for one person. A clinician who can review your dose, timing and health history can answer that question more safely.

What the labels say about it

Nothing. Drug ineffective is not a side effect, so it is not on any reaction table. No label carries a figure for how often a drug does not work.

The trials behind these products do carry that figure. They report how many people reached a given weight loss and how many did not. Those numbers live in the trial papers rather than the reaction tables. That is the right place to look for what a drug does on average.

This section summarizes reports people filed. The label guides show what the FDA-approved prescribing information lists. The two answer different questions and they often disagree, which is the most useful thing about having both.

What this page does and does not establish

One row per claim. The gap between a number and its reading belongs on the page, not in a reader’s head.

Each claim a reader might take from this page, and what the sources behind it actually support.
The claimWhat the evidence shows
People file reports saying these drugs did not workEstablished. Every one of the eight brands carries the term among its 25 most-reported, with counts that run into the thousands.
One brand fails more often than anotherNot established. There is no denominator, so a bigger share can mean a different reporting culture rather than a different drug.
A share here is the chance it will not work for youNot established, and not close. These are counts of reports filed, and the people it worked for never filed one.
Weight gain gets reported on drugs taken to lose weightEstablished for the brands whose stored terms include it. For the rest, all that can be said is that it sits below their 25th term.

Common questions

Does this mean the drug stops working over time?

No. This snapshot has no time axis inside a person. It records that a report was filed, not how many months of treatment came before it.

Tolerance over time is a real question and it needs a trial that follows the same people, not a report count.

Why would somebody report weight gain on a weight-loss drug?

The reports do not explain why the weight gain happened. They only show that the term appeared among the 25 most reported events for six of the eight brands.

Is a bigger number worse?

Not on its own. A product with more reports of everything will tend to have more reports of this too. That is why the table shows shares rather than counts.

Even then, two products can have different report shares simply because one is older, used more often or discussed more.

Where to go next

This page is one question asked of one snapshot. The pages below answer the neighboring ones from the labels and the trials, which is a different kind of evidence.

Every question in this section is listed on the report-stream questions index.

Read this before quoting anything above

These are counts of reports filed with the FDA, not rates. Nobody knows how many people took the drug and did not file a report, and a report is not a finding that the drug caused what was reported.

  • There is no denominator. FAERS counts reports that were filed. It does not count the people who took the drug, so there is no bottom half to the fraction. Any figure on this page that looks like a percentage is a share of this drug’s reports — never a share of the people who took it.
  • A report is not proof the drug did it. FDA does not require a reporter to establish cause. A report says somebody noticed something and thought the drug was worth naming. Some of these events were caused by the drug, some were caused by the illness it was prescribed for, and some were coincidence — FAERS does not separate them.
  • A bigger number can just mean a more-prescribed drug. More reports can simply mean that more people use the drug, that it is newer, or that it receives more news and legal attention. Raw report totals do not tell you which drug is safer.
  • The same event can be counted twice. One event can reach FAERS through more than one channel — the patient, the prescriber and the manufacturer can all file. FDA does not guarantee that the public files are de-duplicated.
  • FDA’s own words. Do not rely on openFDA to make decisions regarding medical care. While we make every effort to ensure that data is accurate, you should assume all results are unvalidated. We may limit or otherwise restrict your access to the API in line with our Terms of Service.
  • Retrieved 2026-08-17 from https://api.fda.gov/drug/event.json · FDA data last updated 2026-07-30 · license https://open.fda.gov/license/

How everything on this site is sourced →

10primary sources, each with the day we read it — open the documents used on this page