An oral semaglutide is registered in Singapore, in three tablet strengths, and has been since June 2021. Its registered indication is type 2 diabetes. The trials that produced weight-loss figures comparable to the injection used 25 mg and 50 mg once daily — doses that do not appear anywhere on Singapore's register. That gap between what is trialled and what is registered is the whole answer to whether there is a pill version of this. This article sets out what is licensed here, what the obesity trials actually used, and why a tablet of this molecule is a harder thing to make than it sounds.
Availability in Singapore. This medicine is registered with Singapore's Health Sciences Authority for type 2 diabetes only. It has no registered weight-management indication here, so prescribing it for weight is off-label: a decision only a doctor who has assessed you can make, and one they may decide against. Which medicine suits a particular person, if any does, is decided by the doctor who assesses them — we do not promote a named product.
What is registered here
Three tablet products — 3 mg, 7 mg and 14 mg — approved on 1 June 2021 and classified Prescription Only (HSA register).
Section 4.1 is short: indicated for the treatment of adults with insufficiently controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus to improve glycaemic control as an adjunct to diet and exercise, either as monotherapy where metformin is inappropriate or in combination with other diabetes medicines (NDF).
That is the entire indication. There is no weight-management wording in it.
Why a peptide can be a tablet at all
Semaglutide is a peptide — a short chain of amino acids — and the digestive system exists to take those apart. Swallowed on its own, it would be broken down before any of it reached the bloodstream.
The tablet exists because it is formulated to carry a small fraction of the dose across the stomach lining before that happens. That is also why its label sets conditions on how it is taken that an injection has no need for: the absorption is fragile, and what is in the stomach at the time changes it.
How a specific medicine is taken belongs on a prescription and in a conversation with the doctor or pharmacist dispensing it, not on a public page.
The doses the obesity trials used
Two published phase 3 trials tested oral semaglutide for weight, and neither used a dose registered in Singapore.
OASIS 4 studied 25 mg once daily in 307 adults with overweight or obesity and without diabetes. Mean weight change at week 64 was −13.6% against −2.2% with placebo (Wharton 2025).
OASIS 2 studied 50 mg once daily in 201 adults in Japan and South Korea, with or without type 2 diabetes. Mean weight change at 68 weeks was −14.3% against −1.3% with placebo (Kadowaki 2025).
Individual results vary and are not guaranteed.
Trial evidence is not registration, and this is the clearest example of it in the whole class. Both results are real, published in major journals, and neither describes a product anyone in Singapore can be prescribed. The registered strengths stop at 14 mg (HSA register).
Anyone who has read that "the pill works about as well as the jab" has read something arguable about a dose that is not on the local register.
The trial worth knowing about regionally
OASIS 2 is the closest thing to relevant local evidence anywhere in this cluster, and it is worth being exact about why.
It ran in Japan and South Korea, in an East Asian population — a population that, as the trial's own framing notes, develops weight-related complications at lower BMI thresholds than the populations most of these trials recruit. Almost every other trial in this class was run predominantly in North America and Europe.
Japan and South Korea are not Singapore, and 201 participants is a small trial. It is regional evidence, not local data, and it should be read as the former.
What "off-label" means here
Off-label: prescribing a registered medicine for a use its registered indication does not cover. It is lawful and it is ordinary medicine — a doctor takes responsibility for a judgement that the evidence supports the use for that patient.
The decision belongs to the doctor, turns on their assessment of one person, and is theirs to decline. GLP-1 medicines may be dispensed in Singapore only by a registered doctor or a licensed retail pharmacy, against a valid prescription (MOH 2024).
A doctor who wants more information before prescribing is not refusing you. It usually means some further checks are worth doing first, so that treatment can begin safely.
If the needle is the obstacle
That is a real reason and a common one, and it deserves a better answer than a licence number.
The needle on these pens is short and fine, and most of what people dread turns out not to be the part that happens. We cover what the injection actually involves in your first GLP-1 injection, and what to do when the fear is the obstacle rather than the medicine in afraid of needles.
The registered picture for needle-free options, and what it means for someone weighing them up, is set out in our page on needle-free GLP-1 options.
The other oral GLP-1, which is also not here
There is now a second oral GLP-1 medicine in the world, and it is a different kind of molecule — not a peptide at all, which means it does not need the absorption workaround this tablet is built around. It is approved in the United States and is not registered in Singapore.
We cover it, and the two agents still in trials, in what is actually coming.
Whether any treatment is suitable for you is a decision for a doctor who has assessed you.
Common questions
Is oral semaglutide available in Singapore?
Yes. Three tablet strengths — 3 mg, 7 mg and 14 mg — were registered on 1 June 2021 and are classified Prescription Only (HSA register).
Can it be used for weight loss here?
Its registered indication is type 2 diabetes, and nothing else (NDF). Prescribing it for weight would be off-label — lawful, ordinary medicine, and entirely the decision of a doctor who has assessed you rather than something a patient can arrange.
Is the pill as effective as the injection?
The trials that produced comparable weight loss used 25 mg and 50 mg once daily (Wharton 2025, Kadowaki 2025). Singapore's register stops at 14 mg (HSA register). So the honest answer is that the doses behind those figures are not registered here in any product. Individual results vary and are not guaranteed.
Why does a tablet need special handling when an injection does not?
Because semaglutide is a peptide, and peptides are normally broken down in the stomach before they can be absorbed. The tablet is formulated to get a small fraction of the dose across the stomach lining, which is why its label sets conditions on how it is taken that an injection has no need for.
Was any of this tested in people like me?
OASIS 2 ran in Japan and South Korea, in 201 East Asian adults with overweight or obesity, with or without type 2 diabetes (Kadowaki 2025). It is the closest regional evidence in this class. Japan and South Korea are not Singapore, and it is not local data.