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GLP-1 microneedle patches and the peptide-through-skin record
FDA has approved no GLP-1 or peptide microneedle patch among the molecules in this tracker. The registry set contains 15 human trials across 6 molecules, going back to 2007. Two trials are testing semaglutide now; both started in 2026, and neither has posted results.
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov API 2.0.5, searched 2026-08-12
What matters first
This is the page for the harder question. Not “does the sticker sold online work” — it does not, and the main patch record covers that. The question here is whether a patch could ever work, which is a research question with a real answer. Other people tried first, with peptides almost exactly the size of semaglutide, and some of them posted their numbers.
A microneedle array is not a sticker
A microneedle array is a bed of needles too short to feel, on a backing the size of a coin. It gets a drug past the skin by making holes in it, so it is not the same thing as a sticker that relies on a molecule drifting through skin on its own.
That difference decides everything on this page. A sticker asks a molecule to drift through intact skin, and above roughly 500 g/mol almost nothing does. A microneedle array skips the argument by punching through. So the size ceiling stops applying — and the trials below show what happens next.
Every molecule that has tried, lightest first
Each row is a molecule with at least one registered human trial of delivery through skin. The weights come from PubChem. The trial counts, phases and results come from the registry, and a script re-reads them rather than a person retyping them.
| Molecule | Weight | Trials | Furthest phase | Results posted | Approved skin product today |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zolmitriptan | 287.36 g/mol | 2 | Phase 3 | Yes | None |
| Glucagon | 3,482.7 g/mol | 2 | Phase 2 | No | None |
| Abaloparatide | 3,961 g/mol | 3 | Phase 3 | Yes | None |
| Semaglutide | 4,113.58 g/mol | 2 | Phase 1 | No | None |
| Teriparatide | 4,118 g/mol | 6 | Phase 2 | Yes | None |
| Tirzepatide | 4,813.53 g/mol | 0 | — | No | None |
None of these molecules has an approved product that goes through skin. That is what Drugs@FDA shows, not a verdict on why. A program can end because the numbers disappointed, because the money ran out, or because the company was sold, and the public record does not say which.
4Read the complete human trial record
The nearest thing to a semaglutide patch already happened
Teriparatide weighs 4,118 g/mol. Semaglutide weighs 4,113.58. The gap between them is about 4 g/mol, which is nothing — they are the same size as far as skin is concerned. Eli Lilly put teriparatide in a skin patch and ran it against the same peptide injected. Here is what the company posted.
| Study arm, as registered | percentage change in BMD |
|---|---|
| 20 Mcg Subcutaneous Teriparatide | 7.8 |
| 30 Mcg Transdermal Teriparatide | 0.63 |
| 50 Mcg Transdermal Teriparatide | 0.32 |
| 80 Mcg Transdermal Teriparatide | 1.63 |
The injection moved the measurement by 7.8. The three patch arms moved it by 0.63, 0.32 and 1.63. The patch did something, but a small fraction of what the needle did, and raising the patch dose barely helped. Lilly did not take it further. Read the whole record at NCT01011556.
The latest-stage peptide patch in this tracker
Abaloparatide weighs 3,961 g/mol, a little under semaglutide. Radius Health built it into a microstructured patch and ran a 511-person phase 3 against the injection. That is a real, finished, late-stage trial of a peptide patch, and it posted numbers.
| Study arm, as registered | percent change |
|---|---|
| Abaloparatide-SC | 10.86 |
| Abaloparatide-sMTS | 7.14 |
This is the strongest posted result in the tracked set. The patch reached about two-thirds of what the injection reached. Six years later Drugs@FDA still lists abaloparatide as a subcutaneous product only. A trial finishing well is not the same as a product arriving.
The two GLP-1 trials running now
Both started in 2026. Both are phase 1, which means a small group of healthy volunteers and questions about safety rather than weight. Neither has posted a result. This table re-reads itself from the registry, so a status change here does not wait for anyone to notice it.
| Registry ID | Sponsor | Phase and status | Started | Participants | Main measurement due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCT07673900 | Terrestrial Bio, Inc. | Phase 1 | 2026-06-15 | 62 | 2027-02-10 |
| NCT07539415 | Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co. LTD. | Phase 1 | 2026-05-06 | 72 | 2026-10-27 |
One detail is worth knowing, because it shows how easily this page gets missed. Daewoong filed its trial under the code names DWRX5003 and DWC202502. The word semaglutide appears nowhere in the title.
It shows up in one place only: a short description of the product, reading “Microneedle patch containing Semaglutide”. So a search that reads titles alone finds one GLP-1 patch trial in the world. There are two.
There are still no results posted to ClinicalTrials.gov for either record. In a company announcement, Daewoong said a separate 70-person human pilot measured how much drug reached the blood. The announcement says semaglutide reached the bloodstream; it is not a posted result for either registry record and does not show weight-loss efficacy. Read the sponsor announcement.
The full list
All 15 trials, so nothing above rests on a selection you cannot check.
| Registry ID | Title | Sponsor | Phase | Status | Started |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCT00489918 | Dose Ranging Study - Macroflux Parathyroid Hormone (PTH) in Postmenopausal Women With Osteoporosis | Zosano Pharma Corporation | Phase 2 | Completed | 2007-06 |
| NCT00535860 | Efficacy & Safety of ViaDerm-hPTH(1-34) Compared to Forteo SC in Postmenopausal Women With Osteoporosis | TransPharma Medical | Phase 2 | Completed | 2008-04 |
| NCT01011556 | A Study for the Transdermal Application of Teriparatide | Eli Lilly and Company | Phase 2 | Completed | 2009-11 |
| NCT01250145 | A Multiple-Dose Study to Evaluate Skin Irritation and Sensitization of Teriparatide Administered Transdermally in Healthy Postmenopausal Women | Eli Lilly and Company | Phase 1 | Completed | 2010-11 |
| NCT01551602 | Clinical Study of AK159 in Healthy Postmenopausal Women | Asahi Kasei Therapeutics Corporation | Phase 1 | Completed | 2012-03 |
| NCT01674621 | Phase 2 Study of BA058 (Abaloparatide) Transdermal Delivery in Postmenopausal Women With Osteoporosis | Radius Health, Inc. | Phase 2 | Completed | 2012-09-25 |
| NCT01684956 | Pharmacokinetic Comparison of Intradermal Versus Sub-cutaneous Insulin and Glucagon Delivery in Type 1 Diabetes | Massachusetts General Hospital | Phase 2 | Status not confirmed recently | 2012-08 |
| NCT01935479 | A Phase I Study of AK159 in Healthy Postmenopausal Women | Asahi Kasei Therapeutics Corporation | Phase 1 | Completed | 2013-08 |
| NCT02459938 | Safety and Efficacy of ZP-Glucagon to Injectable Glucagon for Hypoglycemia | Zosano Pharma Corporation | Phase 1 | Completed | 2015-01 |
| NCT02745392 | Safety and Efficacy of ZP-Zolmitriptan Intracutaneous Microneedle Systems for the Acute Treatment of Migraine | Zosano Pharma Corporation | Phase 2, Phase 3 | Completed | 2016-06 |
| NCT04064411 | Efficacy & Safety of Abaloparatide-Solid Microstructured Transdermal System in Postmenopausal Women With Osteoporosis | Radius Health, Inc. | Phase 3 | Completed | 2019-08-05 |
| NCT04066023 | Double-Blind Comparison of the Efficacy and Safety of C213 to Placebo for the Acute Treatment of Cluster Headaches | Zosano Pharma Corporation | Phase 2, Phase 3 | Completed | 2019-10-03 |
| NCT04366726 | Study to Evaluate the Pharmacokinetics (PK), Pharmacodynamics (PD), and Usability of Abaloparatide-solid Microstructured Transdermal System (sMTS) in Postmenopausal Women With Low Bone Mineral Density (BMD) | Radius Health, Inc. | Phase 1 | Completed | 2019-04-09 |
| NCT07539415 | A Phase 1 Clinical Trial to Assess the Safety of DWRX5003 and Relative Bioavailability to DWC202502 and DWC202503 in Healthy Adult Volunteers | Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co. LTD. | Phase 1 | Recruiting | 2026-05-06 |
| NCT07673900 | Semaglutide Delivered Epi-Intradermally by Microarray Patch (VX-201) Versus Subcutaneous Administration in Healthy Overweight and Obese Participants | Terrestrial Bio, Inc. | Phase 1 | Recruiting | 2026-06-15 |
Take the page
One row per molecule, including tirzepatide, which has no registered trial of delivery through skin at all. That zero is a row because it is the answer, and a file listing only the trials that exist could not carry it.
Both files hold the weights, the trial counts, the furthest phase, whether results were posted, and the registry IDs behind every count.
How to cite this table
Analysis by HealthspanLedger · edition 2026.08 · version bcb8762b13b6 · retrieved 2026-08-12
The underlying records are us government work, public domain and carry no copyright: the publisher’s own license. This table — how we select, join, label and bound the facts — is ours, and it is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Reuse it, including commercially, and credit HealthspanLedger with a link to this page.
What remains unknown
Questions people actually ask
Is a GLP-1 microneedle patch approved?
When could a GLP-1 patch be available?
If abaloparatide got to phase 3, why is there no patch?
Do microneedles hurt?
Is a microneedle patch what I would buy online?
Keep reading
- GLP-1 patches and the transdermal delivery record — what is actually sold and what FDA has authorized.
- The semaglutide evidence guide — approval status and sourced values for the molecule.
- The clinical-trial pipeline — the same registry, read for every compound on this site.
Sources
How we checked these details
Reviewed 2026-08-12
Every trial on this page came from a script that queries ClinicalTrials.gov and writes the answer to a file in this repository. Nobody types a phase or a date by hand. Re-running it picks up new trials, status changes and newly posted results. The wider rules are in the sourcing methodology. If a trial here has reported since we last looked, tell us at contact@healthspanledger.com.