Novo Nordisk evaluates year-long semaglutide implant for weight loss maintenance

Novo Nordisk will conduct a non-exclusive internal evaluation of Vivani Medical’s NPM-139, a tiny semaglutide implant designed for chronic weight management and built on Vivani’s NanoPortal platform. The deal, announced July 7, puts a new delivery format into the race to keep people on GLP-1 therapy long enough to preserve weight loss after the first round of injections.

The timing reflects a hard problem for obesity care: staying on treatment. CNBC has reported that side effects, high out-of-pocket costs, injection fatigue and stigma push many patients to stop GLP-1 drugs, with some studies estimating that roughly half or more discontinue within a year. Vivani’s implant is aimed squarely at that gap, with the company saying it could eventually support once- or twice-yearly maintenance dosing instead of weekly injections.

Vivani said the Novo Nordisk agreement carries no exclusivity provisions for NPM-139 or the NanoPortal technology. The Alameda, California, company expects to begin a Phase 1 randomized, first-in-human study in mid-2026, using Wegovy injections as the active comparator. That trial is designed to measure safety, pharmacokinetics and tolerability, with the data intended to support a possible Phase 2 dose-ranging study.

The project arrives as drug makers look for ways to make obesity treatment less burdensome after the initial weight comes off. In May, Weill Cornell Medicine reported findings from the ATTAIN-MAINTAIN trial showing that patients who switched from injectable GLP-1 therapy to once-daily oral orforglipron maintained about 75% to 80% of prior weight loss and cardiometabolic benefits over a year. The trial, published in Nature Medicine on May 12, enrolled 751 people in an earlier head-to-head injectable comparison, then randomized 205 tirzepatide patients and 171 semaglutide patients to orforglipron or placebo.

Louis J. Aronne, who has long argued that obesity requires chronic treatment, has pointed to the appeal of less burdensome options for patients who do not want to remain on injections indefinitely. The question now is whether a longer-acting implant can do more than sound novel: whether it can improve adherence, hold down relapse, and fit into care that is already strained by cost, access and the daily reality of living with a chronic disease.