Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 10 June (HL543), whether those categories of patients now eligible to receive semaglutide by injection will also be eligible for orforglipron tablets on the same basis.

Orforglipron does not yet have a marketing authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, so it cannot currently be marketed in the United Kingdom. Any future licence would set out the condition it can be used for, and the recommended dosage. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is responsible for making recommendations to the National Health Service on whether newly licensed medicines should be routinely funded, based on an assessment of their clinical and cost effectiveness. NICE has scheduled an appraisal of orforglipron for managing obesity or overweight with at least one weight-related co-morbidity, in anticipation of a UK marketing authorisation being granted. It will aim to publish guidance as close as possible to the expected licensing date, with final guidance currently expected in November 2026.