Which of these drugs has a generic, and what does it cost?

What is the generic name of each of these drugs?

The generic name is the molecule. It is printed on the carton under the brand name, and it is not a cheaper product — it is what the drug is. Four molecules cover all eight brands here.

Two brands can share one generic name and still not be swappable. Wegovy and Ozempic are both semaglutide, approved under different applications for different things at different doses. Asking a pharmacy for “the generic” of either gets you nothing, because for semaglutide there is nothing to get.

Is there a generic Zepbound or Mounjaro?

No, and nobody has filed for one. Tirzepatide is on the approval file twice, and both entries are Lilly’s own. There is no abbreviated application behind them — not approved, not tentatively approved, not pending in a form the public file shows.

So there is no cheaper tirzepatide with an FDA approval behind it. What is sold as cheap tirzepatide is compounded. That is a different thing, on a different legal basis, with its own risks.

On file for tirzepatide: 2 applications, 0 of them abbreviated and 0 of those marketed. The brand side is NDA215866, NDA217806. A new drug application — the brand’s own, approved on its own clinical evidence. A copy of it is filed as an abbreviated application.

Is there a generic Ozempic, Wegovy or Rybelsus?

One company has an approved copy and cannot sell it. Apotex holds an abbreviated application that FDA marks tentatively approved. That means the science passed. A patent or an exclusivity period still bars it from the market. Every other semaglutide application on file is Novo Nordisk’s own.

A tentative approval is not a product. No pharmacy can order it, and no date for that changing is published in this file. Reading it as “a generic Ozempic has been approved” sends a person to a counter for something that is not there.

On file for semaglutide: 6 applications, 1 of them abbreviated and 0 of those marketed. The brand side is NDA209637, NDA213051, NDA213182, NDA215256, NDA218316. A new drug application — the brand’s own, approved on its own clinical evidence. A copy of it is filed as an abbreviated application.

Is there a generic Saxenda or Victoza?

Yes, and this is the only molecule on this site where the answer is yes. Liraglutide has approved abbreviated applications from several companies, and all of them are marketed. CMS prices them in the same weekly file as the two brands they copy.

The generics do not all copy the same brand. Some carry the diabetes label. Some carry the weight one. So which of the two drugs you can get cheaper turns on what your pharmacy stocks.

On file for liraglutide: 14 applications, 11 of them abbreviated and 11 of those marketed. The brand side is BLA208583, NDA022341, NDA206321. A biologics license application. A biologic cannot have a generic. The only copy the law provides for is a biosimilar, filed under a different section of the statute and approved on different evidence.

Is there a generic Trulicity?

There cannot be one. Trulicity is approved as a biologic, and a biologic has no generic pathway. The only copy the law allows is a biosimilar. That is a separate filing, judged on its own evidence rather than on Lilly’s.

This is not the same as “not yet”. Waiting for a generic Trulicity is waiting for something the statute does not describe. A biosimilar could arrive; none has been approved.

On file for dulaglutide: 1 applications, 0 of them abbreviated and 0 of those marketed. The brand side is BLA125469. A biologics license application. A biologic cannot have a generic. The only copy the law provides for is a biosimilar, filed under a different section of the statute and approved on different evidence.

Has any GLP-1 ever gone generic?

Two have. Exenatide, the first GLP-1 approved in the United States, has a marketed generic behind it, and so does liraglutide. Both molecules are old enough that their patents have run.

That is the whole pattern. A GLP-1 gets a generic when its patents expire, and the two newest molecules are the two with none. Nothing about a generic is decided by how well a drug works or how much people want it.

On file for exenatide: 5 applications, 1 of them abbreviated and 1 of those marketed. The brand side is NDA021773, NDA021919, NDA022200, NDA209210. A new drug application — the brand’s own, approved on its own clinical evidence. A copy of it is filed as an abbreviated application.

Is the generic a generic of Saxenda or of Victoza?

Both, and which one you get depends on the application. Of the eleven marketed copies, three carry a chronic weight management label and five carry the diabetes one. They are the same molecule at the same strength in the same pen, and their labels are for different conditions.

This matters at the counter. A pharmacy filling a weight prescription needs a copy whose label covers weight. Two liraglutide boxes can sit on the same shelf, look identical, and not be interchangeable for what you were prescribed.

3 of those approvals have no label in FDA’s label database. An approval and a published label are two different filings, and one can exist without the other. We do not guess which brand they copy from the strength or the company. Every one of them shares a strength with both brands.

Saxenda and Victoza are the same molecule in the same 18 mg pen from the same company, licensed for different things at different doses. What Saxenda costs and what Victoza costs carry the manufacturer side of each, which is where the savings offers and the published prices live. Neither page names a generic price, because there is no manufacturer publishing one.

How much cheaper is the generic?

Between 37 and 64 percent less, measured on what a pharmacy reports paying to buy each one. This is not a price you can pay. It is the wholesale figure CMS collects every week, and it is the only like-for-like comparison of a GLP-1 brand against its own generic that exists in public.

Each row pairs a brand pen with the generic pen that is the same object. Same molecule, same 18 mg in 3 mL, same weekly CMS file. A month is counted at the same daily dose on both sides. Nothing here compares a pen with a different pen.

• Saxenda’s label ends at 3 mg a day. A month at that dose is five pens, so the five-pen generic carton is the one paired.
• Victoza’s label tops out at 1.8 mg a day. A month at that dose is three pens, and both cartons hold three.
• 1.2 mg a day is the first dose Victoza’s label says a person can stay on. A month at that dose is two pens, and both cartons hold two.

What this number is not

• It is an acquisition cost, not a patient price. What you pay is set by your plan, your pharmacy and any manufacturer program you qualify for, and none of those are in this file.
• CMS prices these products per milliliter or per tablet. Any monthly figure on this site is our arithmetic on top of that, using the package size from the product’s own label, and it is labeled as derived wherever it appears.
• Wholesalers, pharmacy benefit managers, plans and manufacturers settle further amounts between themselves that are not public. A difference between what a pharmacy pays and what anyone is charged is not evidence of wrongdoing, and this site does not present it as one.
• Each row carries its own effective date, and CMS marks whether the figure came from the latest survey or was carried forward from an earlier file. Both are printed rather than averaged away.

One more limit applies only here. A brand has a manufacturer publishing what a patient pays; a generic has nobody publishing anything. So the gap above is a gap between two wholesale figures. How much of it reaches a counter is set by a pharmacy, a plan and a state. None of the three publishes its part.

The generic is not one price

Three cartons of the same generic pen, in the same weekly file, and a pharmacy pays 72 percent more per pen for the dearest than the cheapest. Same molecule, same strength, same device. Only the box is different.

The cheap carton is liraglutide 3-pak 18 mg/3 ml at $96.07 a pen. The dear one is liraglutide 5-pak 18 mg/3 ml at $165.52. The carton that costs more is the one holding a month of the weight dose. So the person paying the premium per pen is the person taking it for weight.

We do not know why, and we are not going to invent a reason. CMS publishes the figure and not the cause. What can be said is that the difference is in the federal file every week and it is not a rounding artifact.

What remains unknown

Three things, and each one is missing because nobody publishes it rather than because we did not look.

• What a generic costs you. No manufacturer runs a savings program for one, and no pharmacy publishes a cash price anyone can check. The wholesale figure above is the only honest one.
• Which application your pharmacy stocks. Whether the box behind the counter carries the weight label or the diabetes one is a stocking decision, and no public file records it.
• When semaglutide’s copy becomes sellable. The tentative approval is on the file. The patent and exclusivity dates that bar it are not, and a date guessed from a news story is not a date.

Where to read next

This page names no savings card and no patient price. Those live one level down, per product.

• What every one of these costs, side by side carries the exclusion rule that shuts the savings cards to anyone on a government plan.
• What compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide actually are covers the thing people buy when no generic exists. It is not a generic, and the difference is legal rather than chemical.
• What Trulicity costs is the page for the one product here with no generic route at all.