Novo Nordisk said real-world studies presented at The Liver Meeting® 2026 linked weekly semaglutide 2.4 mg to reductions in weight and blood-sugar markers among adults with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH). The findings came from retrospective analyses of medical records, so they show associations and cannot establish that treatment caused the changes.
In PLATINUM-Truveta, 2,873 adults who started semaglutide were compared with 2,285 who started resmetirom. At six months, reported mean weight change was −18.9 pounds (8.6 kilograms; about 8%) with semaglutide and −5.6 pounds with resmetirom. HbA1c fell by 0.38 percentage points with semaglutide and 0.08 points with resmetirom; the reported between-group P value was below 0.001 for both measures.
The liver-enzyme results were more mixed. AST fell by 10.4 U/L with semaglutide and 4.5 U/L with resmetirom, a significant between-group difference (P<0.001). ALT also fell in both groups, but the between-group difference was not statistically significant (P=0.20). Novo’s table reported a larger six-month LDL reduction with resmetirom, although it did not specify the unit for that measure.
A second analysis, RHODIUM-2, compared 2,479 people who started semaglutide with 70,702 who did not. At 12 months, reported changes for initiators versus non-initiators were −14.0 versus −3.8 U/L for ALT, −9.1 versus −1.8 U/L for AST, and −30.7 versus −2.4 pounds for weight. The release reported statistically significant adjusted between-group differences for those measures; it listed HbA1c changes of −0.46 and −0.09 percentage points but no P value.
Both analyses used de-identified Truveta records gathered from June 2021 through March 2026. Novo said the studies were observational, treatment was not randomized, patient groups differed at baseline and results relied on patients with available follow-up who met treatment-persistence criteria. The company also cautioned that unmeasured confounding and inaccuracies in medical-record coding may affect the findings.
The results concern lab and metabolic measures, not evidence from these studies that liver scarring or disease outcomes improved. The FDA approved Wegovy in 2025 under an accelerated pathway for adults with noncirrhotic MASH and moderate-to-advanced fibrosis; a confirmatory trial is required to verify clinical benefit.