A 2026 analysis in Obesity set out to estimate what semaglutide would cost to make if it were produced as a generic, and put the figure for an injectable at $28 to $140 per person-year [1]. Against that, the published prices this desk collects — set out in full in what a GLP-1 actually costs — occupy a different order of magnitude entirely, with the cheapest injectable semaglutide figure among 418 sellers working out to $912 across a year.
That comparison is worth making carefully, because the two numbers are not the same kind of thing and treating them as one would mislead anyone using this desk to judge whether a seller is charging fairly. The researchers built their estimate by cost-plus modeling, taking active ingredient shipment data out of India for 2024 and 2025 and adding assumptions for formulation, packaging, taxation and a profit margin. What comes out is an estimate of what it would cost a manufacturer to produce and sell the drug, which is a floor beneath a price rather than a price anybody has been quoted.
The distance between that floor and what a reader actually pays is not one company’s markup. It covers the patent that funded the original trials, the injection device, the pharmacy that fills the order and the clinician who writes it, alongside whatever margin the seller takes. Most of what this desk ranks is compounded or cash-pay telehealth semaglutide rather than the licensed generic the paper models, so the gap is a scale check and not a like-for-like comparison — the narrower question of whether a published figure is the figure you are billed is handled separately in the headline against the bill.
The geography in the paper is the part with policy behind it. Twelve countries whose patents expire in 2026 account for 47% of global obesity and 49% of type 2 diabetes, no patent filings were identified in a further 150 countries, and the authors calculate that by the end of 2026 generic injectable semaglutide could become available in 162 countries representing 69% of global type 2 diabetes and 84% of clinical obesity. The paper does not name the twelve countries, so neither will this article.
One finding lands directly on a question this desk has measured from the other end. The authors report that injection devices contribute disproportionately to the total modeled cost, and their estimate for an oral formulation runs $186 to $380 per person-year, well above the injectable range. Sellers here price the two formats the same direction: comparing sellers against themselves rather than against each other shows the tablet usually costs more, which is the rarer case of a modeling paper and a price sweep agreeing without either having consulted the other.
For anyone buying today the practical reading is narrow but real. A market whose production floor sits this far below its prices is a market where prices have room to move, which is an argument for keeping the ability to move with them and against signing away a year to capture a discount — the arithmetic of which is worked through in what a twelve-month commitment locks you out of. Desk figures in this article were read from the 418 sellers publishing an injectable semaglutide price as of September 2026.