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Zepbound vs Ozempic: what the two labels actually say
Zepbound and Ozempic are different drugs, approved for different things. Zepbound treats weight and sleep apnea. Ozempic treats type 2 diabetes. No trial has compared these two products.
Source: Read from both FDA labels on DailyMed
What matters first
Medically reviewed by Jennifer Montecillo, MD · non-practicing medical reviewerReviewed 2026-08-13every number here is sourced
Zepbound and Ozempic, line by line
13 lines, read off the two labels. Where a label says nothing, the cell says so rather than borrowing from the other one.
| Question | Zepbound | Ozempic |
|---|---|---|
| What is in it | Tirzepatide, which acts on two gut hormone receptors, GIP and GLP-1 | Semaglutide, which acts on one, GLP-1 |
| Who makes it | Eli Lilly and Company | Novo Nordisk |
| What the label approves | Weight reduction, and moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity | Blood sugar in type 2 diabetes, lower heart event risk in type 2 diabetes with heart disease, and slower kidney decline in type 2 diabetes with chronic kidney disease |
| Do the two labels share a single approved useSame on both labels | No | No |
| How oftenSame on both labels | Once a week | Once a week |
| When it was approved | 2023-11-08, under NDA 217806 | 2017-12-05, under NDA 209637 |
| Starting dose | 2.5 mg once a week for 4 weeks | 0.25 mg once a week |
| Top dose | 15 mg a week | 2 mg a week |
| Doses you can stay on | 5, 10 or 15 mg. 7.5 and 12.5 mg are steps you pass through | 0.5, 1 or 2 mg |
| How a missed week is handled | Within 4 days the dose can still go in | Within 5 days the dose can still go in |
| Youngest patient coveredSame on both labels | Adults only | Adults only |
| What the label reports for nausea | 25, 29 and 28 in 100 at 5, 10 and 15 mg, against 8 on placebo | 15.8 in 100 at 0.5 mg and 20.3 at 1 mg, against 6.1 on placebo |
| How the dose is drawn | Single-dose pen or vial, four-dose vial or KwikPen | Multi-dose pens holding four weekly doses, or single-dose syringes |
Has anyone tested Zepbound against Ozempic directly?
No. Two trials have put tirzepatide against semaglutide, and neither of them is a trial of this pair — each matches one of these two products and misses the other.
SURMOUNT-5 ran 72 weeks in 751 adults with obesity and without type 2 diabetes. Its tirzepatide arm went to 10 mg or 15 mg, which is squarely inside Zepbound’s range. Its semaglutide arm went to 1.7 mg or 2.4 mg — and neither of those is a dose the Ozempic label offers. Ozempic stops at 2 mg, and the doses it names to stay on are 0.5, 1 and 2.
SURPASS-2 ran 40 weeks in 1,879 adults with type 2 diabetes, and its semaglutide arm was 1 mg, which is an Ozempic dose. But type 2 diabetes is not a use on the Zepbound label at all, so that trial answers the Mounjaro question rather than this one.
Put together: one trial has Zepbound’s doses and the wrong semaglutide dose, and the other has Ozempic’s dose and the wrong population. Nobody has run the trial this search asks about.
That leaves the real difference where the labels put it. These two are not competing to do the same job better. They are approved for different jobs, and no cell in the table above overlaps on what each is for.
5Comparison details
Each of these has a twin that does the other one’s job
Zepbound is tirzepatide. So is Mounjaro, from the same maker, in the same devices, on the same step pattern — and Mounjaro is the one approved for type 2 diabetes.
Ozempic is semaglutide. So is Wegovy, from the same maker — and Wegovy is the one approved for weight.
That reframes the search. Somebody choosing between Zepbound and Ozempic is usually choosing which condition is being treated, and once that is settled the maker has a product on each side of it. The pairs that actually compete are Zepbound against Wegovy, and Mounjaro against Ozempic.
15 mg against 2 mg is not seven times the drug
The top doses look wildly apart. They are not comparable at all, because they are different molecules and a milligram of one has no relationship to a milligram of the other.
Dose numbers only mean something inside one drug’s own ladder. Across two drugs they mean nothing, and the gap between 15 and 2 says only that the two molecules are given at different scales.
The nausea rows have the same problem. The Zepbound label reports 25 to 29 in 100; Ozempic reports 15.8 and 20.3 in 100. Those numbers came from different trials and different groups of people, so they do not measure a difference between the drugs. Both labels warn against comparing rates across separate trials.
What about “Ozempic vs Zepbound”?
It is the same comparison with the names reversed, so both searches lead to this answer.
Publishing both orderings would mean two near-identical pages competing with each other for one answer. We publish one page per pair and let both phrasings land on it.
The full label for each
Compare the products here, then open each product’s own dose schedule and side-effect table for the details.
Zepbound
Ozempic
- Zepbound (tirzepatide) injection — FDA-approved Prescribing Information (DailyMed)retrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- Zepbound (tirzepatide) Prescribing Information, revised 02/2026 — Drugs@FDA NDA 217806/S-042retrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA approval letter, NDA 217806 — Zepbound (tirzepatide) injection, chronic weight management in adultsretrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA supplement approval letter, NDA 217806/S-013 — Zepbound for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnearetrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- Ozempic (semaglutide) injection — FDA-approved Prescribing Information (DailyMed)retrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- Drugs@FDA approval history — NDA 209637, Ozempic (semaglutide) injectionretrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA approval letter, NDA 209637 — Ozempic (semaglutide) injection, glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetesretrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA supplement approval letter, NDA 209637/S-003 — Ozempic cardiovascular event risk reduction in type 2 diabetes with established cardiovascular disease (SUSTAIN 6)retrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA supplement approval letter, NDA 209637/S-025 — Ozempic for reducing sustained eGFR decline, end-stage kidney disease and cardiovascular death in type 2 diabetes with chronic kidney diseaseretrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA supplement approval letter, NDA 209637/S-009 — addition of a third Ozempic maintenance dose, 2 mg once weeklyretrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- Aronne LJ et al. Tirzepatide as Compared with Semaglutide for the Treatment of Obesity (SURMOUNT-5). N Engl J Med 2025;393(1):26-36 — PubMed 40353578retrieved 2026-08-12Human trial
- SURMOUNT-5 trial registry record — ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05822830retrieved 2026-08-12Human trial
- Frías JP et al. Tirzepatide versus Semaglutide Once Weekly in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes (SURPASS-2). N Engl J Med 2021;385(6):503-515 — PubMed 34170647retrieved 2026-08-12Human trial
- SURPASS-2 trial registry record — ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03987919retrieved 2026-08-12Human trial