Why carry out this study?

To help manage blood glucose, people with type 2 diabetes have glucose-lowering medications added in a stepwise manner as their disease progresses; early use of combination therapy has recently been advocated in international guidelines.

Oral semaglutide is the first oral glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist and is likely to be used in combination with other glucose-lowering agents.

In the current post-hoc subgroup analyses, data from the PIONEER clinical trial programme were used to explore the efficacy and safety of oral semaglutide versus comparators in patients receiving various combinations of background medications and background insulin regimens.

What was learned from the study?

Oral semaglutide had similar efficacy and tolerability regardless of the background medication in PIONEER 3–5, 7 and 8, and the insulin regimen in PIONEER 8. Oral semaglutide generally improved glycated haemoglobin and body weight parameters to a greater extent than comparator treatments across background medication and insulin regimen subgroups and trials.

Oral semaglutide appears suitable for a broad population of patients with type 2 diabetes in combination with other glucose-lowering agents.