Head to head
Cagrilintide vs Retatrutide
Side-by-side on appetite control, dosing, kinetics and evidence — with an honest verdict at the end.
Verdict
No winner in this data
What you are actually choosing between
These sit in different classes. Cagrilintide is a metabolic compound; Retatrutide is a GLP-1 / incretin agonist. They get compared because of where they overlap, not because they are interchangeable.
The overlap is appetite control, fat loss, and metabolic health. On this site's goal weighting — an editorial priority score, not a measure of effect size — Cagrilintide rates 5/5 for appetite control and Retatrutide rates 5/5.
The evidence
Neither has an evidence edge — both sit at the same tier. Cagrilintide: controlled human trials behind it, without an approval; investigational; standalone long-term data does not exist yet. Retatrutide: controlled human trials behind it, without an approval; phase 3 is still running, so there is no long-term safety record. Anyone telling you one is clearly better supported than the other is going beyond what is published.
How they differ in practice
Half-lives are close — 7.5 days for Cagrilintide, 6 days for Retatrutide — and both are dosed once a week, so the rhythm of actually running them is the same.
Risk and difficulty
The contraindication lists are not the same: Cagrilintide flags under 18, which Retatrutide does not; Retatrutide flags MTC or MEN2 history, pancreatitis history, and thyroid disease, which Cagrilintide does not. If any of those describe you they remove a compound from consideration outright, regardless of everything above.
Retatrutide is rated intermediate here and Cagrilintide advanced. That rating is about how much can go wrong in handling, dosing and monitoring, not about how well either works.
Source notes
What the evidence actually says
Verbatim, so you can check the verdict above against what it was built from.
Cagrilintide
Long-acting amylin analogue, not a GLP-1. Phase 2 randomized human trials dosed 0.3 to 4.5 mg once weekly with 4-week step-ups, and it is in phase 3 combined with semaglutide as CagriSema. It is investigational and NOT approved anywhere as a standalone product. Amylin analogues act on satiety through a different receptor to GLP-1, which is the rationale for the combination, but standalone long-term data does not yet exist.
Retatrutide
Triple GIP/GLP-1/glucagon receptor agonist. Phase 2 randomized human trials in obesity and type 2 diabetes used 1, 4, 8 and 12 mg once weekly with 4-week step-ups, and phase 3 is ongoing. It is investigational and NOT approved by any regulator, so there is no approved label, no long-term safety data, and no pharmacy-grade product. The glucagon arm adds a heart-rate signal that semaglutide and tirzepatide do not have to the same degree.
Side by side
The numbers
| Attribute | Cagrilintide | Retatrutide |
|---|---|---|
| Class | Metabolic | GLP-1 / incretin |
| Routes | Subcutaneous | Subcutaneous |
| Dose range | 300 mcg–4.5 mg (typical 2.4 mg) | 500 mcg–12 mg (typical 4 mg) |
| Frequency | Once a week | Once a week |
| Half-life | 7.5 days | 6 days |
| Cycle length | No fixed cycle | No fixed cycle |
| Experience | Advanced | Intermediate |
| Evidence | Controlled human trials | Controlled human trials |
| Contraindications |
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| Side effects |
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Turn a typical dose into a mark on the syringe: CagrilintideRetatrutide
Goals
Where they overlap, and where they do not
| Goal | Cagrilintide | Retatrutide |
|---|---|---|
| appetite control | Cagrilintide: 5/5 | Retatrutide: 5/5 |
| fat loss | Cagrilintide: 4/5 | Retatrutide: 5/5 |
| metabolic health | Cagrilintide: 3/5 | Retatrutide: 4/5 |
They overlap on 3 goals and diverge on 0. Weights are this site’s editorial priority score out of 5 — how central a goal is to why people use a compound. They are not effect sizes and two 5s do not mean two equal results.
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Educational information only, not medical advice. Talk to a licensed clinician before starting, changing, or stopping anything.