Caspian Healthcare › Obesity › Medicines
This page is information, not a prescription. It describes a prescription medicine by its generic name so that you can read about it before or after a consultation. It is not an advertisement, it is not an offer to supply any medicine, and it does not recommend any brand. Nothing here should be used to start, stop or change a medicine. That decision is made by a doctor who has examined you.
Four medicines are realistically available in India for weight management. This section describes each one by its generic name: how it works, what the trials actually showed, how it is taken, what it costs, and what happens if you stop. No brand is named and no brand is recommended.
| Medicine | How it is taken | Approved in India for | Average weight change in trials | Indicative cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tirzepatide | Weekly injection | Obesity and type 2 diabetes | 20.2% at 72 weeks (SURMOUNT-5) | ₹13,125 to ₹25,781 a pen, one pen is about a month |
| Semaglutide | Weekly injection | Obesity or type 2 diabetes, depending on the product | 13.7% at 72 weeks (SURMOUNT-5); 14.9% at 68 weeks (STEP-1) | ₹1,300 to ₹8,999 a month, Indian-made at the lower end |
| Semaglutide, oral | Daily tablet | Type 2 diabetes only in India. Used in obesity care for needle phobia, injection fatigue, and maintenance | About 2% to 4% at 14 mg in a diabetes population | ₹3,000 to ₹10,900 a month |
| Orlistat | Capsule with meals | Obesity | About 2% to 3%, roughly 2.8 kg more than diet alone (XENDOS) | ₹450 to ₹1,350 a month |
There is more than one originator semaglutide brand on sale in India and they are not the same price. At the 2.4 mg maintenance dose one is around ₹8,999 a month and the other is around ₹16,400. If a pharmacy is quoting you nearer the higher figure, two things are worth raising at your next visit. The first is whether the cheaper originator brand, or an Indian-made version, is available to you. The second is that tirzepatide costs about the same as that higher figure, and in the one trial that compared the two directly it produced a larger average weight change.
Which of them is right for you depends on more than the weight figure. If you have type 2 diabetes, both now carry an approved indication for lowering cardiovascular risk. If you do not have diabetes, only semaglutide does, because that is the population its trial enrolled. And the kidney evidence is semaglutide's alone either way.
Whether that makes tirzepatide the better choice for you is a different question, and not one a web page can answer. If you do not have diabetes, the placebo controlled evidence for fewer heart attacks and strokes is semaglutide's alone, and the kidney evidence is semaglutide's either way. Tolerance differs between people. Supply of both has been interrupted before. Bring the price you have actually been quoted to the consultation and it can be worked through properly.
Weight figures are means from named randomised trials in the populations those trials enrolled. They are not results from this clinic, and they are not predictions. Costs are indicative Indian maximum retail prices in September 2026, they change often, and no medicine is sold through this website.
The largest average weight change of anything available in India, and the only medicine anywhere approved for obstructive sleep apnoea. Also the most expensive by a wide margin.
Less weight change than tirzepatide, but the only molecule here with trials showing fewer heart attacks and strokes and slower kidney decline. Indian-made versions have made it affordable.
No needle and no fridge. Less weight change than the injection, because only the diabetes strengths are sold in India. Its real places are needle phobia, injection fatigue, and holding weight already lost on an injection.
The cheapest and the weakest. Still first line in the current Indian guideline for stage 2 obesity without diabetes, and a reasonable place to start if nothing else is affordable.
The usual way of choosing is to pick the most effective medicine and then worry about the price. In India that order produces a predictable failure. Stopping reverses the result, so a medicine you can afford for four months does not buy four months of benefit. It buys the cost, the regain, and a reasonable but wrong belief that treatment does not work for you.
So the order here is the other way round. Work out what you could genuinely keep paying for at least a year. Rule out everything above that. Then choose the best-supported option from what is left. The best medicine for you is the best one you can keep taking, and that is not a compromise, it is the correct clinical answer.
The treatment options planner does this with your own weight, budget and circumstances, works out the cost for each kilogram, and prints a brief you can bring to an appointment. Nothing you type into it leaves your own browser.
If a product is offered to you that is not on this page, read the page on fake and grey market weight loss products before buying it.
On weight alone, the only head-to-head randomised trial is SURMOUNT-5, in which tirzepatide produced a mean 20.2 per cent weight change at 72 weeks against 13.7 per cent for semaglutide. But semaglutide is the only molecule available in India with placebo-controlled trials showing fewer heart attacks and strokes and slower kidney decline, and Indian-made semaglutide costs a fraction of tirzepatide. The best medicine for any individual is the best-supported one they can keep taking for at least a year, which is why affordability is applied first and the evidence second.
The Indian product patent expired on 20 March 2026 and several Indian manufacturers now make semaglutide under national regulatory approval, mostly on Indian bioequivalence data. These are lawful generics, not compounded or grey-market product. Two things differ from the originator: the cardiovascular and kidney outcome trials were run with the originator product, so the same benefit is an inference from bioequivalence rather than a separate result; and many Indian products come as vials or reusable cartridge pens, where dosing errors are more likely than with a prefilled pen.
As of September 2026, indicative Indian maximum retail prices are roughly 450 to 1,350 rupees a month for orlistat, 1,300 to 8,000 rupees a month for Indian-made semaglutide injection, 3,000 to 10,900 rupees a month for oral semaglutide, and 13,125 to 25,781 rupees a pen for tirzepatide, where one pen holds four weekly doses. No Indian health insurance policy currently covers these medicines for weight management. Prices change often and should be checked at the pharmacy.
Most of the weight returns. In the tirzepatide withdrawal trial people switched to placebo regained 14 per cent of body weight over the following year, and in the semaglutide extension people regained about two-thirds of what they had lost. Blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar drift back in proportion. This is why a medicine that can only be afforded for a few months usually buys the cost and the regain rather than a lasting benefit.
Yes. All of the medicines described here are prescription-only in India and may be supplied by a pharmacy only against a valid prescription from a registered medical practitioner. They are not sold through this website.
Naltrexone with bupropion, and phentermine with topiramate, are not approved in India. Orforglipron has an expert committee recommendation from the national drug regulator but no final approval and no launch. Oral tirzepatide does not exist anywhere. Sibutramine and rimonabant were withdrawn and are banned. The higher oral semaglutide strengths studied for weight loss are not marketed in India.
Sources: SURMOUNT-1, SURMOUNT-2, SURMOUNT-4, SURMOUNT-5, SURMOUNT-OSA, SURPASS-CVOT, STEP-1, STEP-2, SELECT, FLOW, ESSENCE, XENDOS, the 2025 revised Indian consensus guideline on obesity management, and the Indian prescribing information for each medicine. Full citations are on each medicine page. Prices are indicative Indian maximum retail prices in September 2026, they change often, and they are not a quotation. No medicine is sold or supplied through this website. Reviewed on 11 September 2026 by Dr. Khizer Hussain Junaidy, Diabetologist & Bariatric Physician, Telangana State Medical Council registration no. 04937.
Every number here comes from a named, published clinical trial and is reported as what happened to the people in that trial. None of it is a result from this clinic, a prediction for you, or a promise. Trial populations are selected and individual results vary widely. The trials are named in the reference line above so that you, or any doctor, can look them up.
If you want to talk about what any of it means for your own situation, our contact details and consulting hours are at the bottom of every page in this section, and our fees are published in full on the cost page.