Amylin is a 37-amino-acid hormone co-secreted with insulin by the pancreatic beta cells. It slows gastric emptying, signals satiety and moderates post-meal glucose handling — a pathway distinct from the incretin (GLP-1 and GIP) route that dominates the current weight-management market. Amylin analogues are the compounds built to imitate it.
Pramlintide: the first analogue, and its limits
Pramlintide (Symlin) was the first amylin analogue to reach patients, authorised in the United States in 2005 as an adjunct to insulin. It is not licensed in the UK or the EU. Its efficacy was modest set against the incretin medicines, and it required frequent administration; both features limited its use and pushed researchers toward longer-acting analogues.
Cagrilintide and the long-acting generation
Cagrilintide is a long-acting amylin analogue developed by Novo Nordisk. It is non-selective across the amylin and calcitonin receptors and is engineered for once-weekly dosing. It is not licensed in the UK, the US or the EU as a standalone product; its development has centred on CagriSema, a fixed-dose combination with semaglutide that pairs amylin and GLP-1 signalling.
A 2026 narrative review in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism identified six long-acting amylin-based compounds that had entered human clinical development by early 2026: cagrilintide, eloralintide, petrelintide, MET-233i, ABBV-295 and AZD6234. A parallel 2026 review in Peptides surveyed the same class as therapies for obesity and type 2 diabetes. The practical aim of the engineering is consistent: hold the biological signal while extending dosing intervals from multiple daily injections to once weekly or less often.
What the clinical evidence shows
The pivotal CagriSema programme — the REDEFINE trials — reported greater weight loss for the combination than for either component alone, which is the central finding for the amylin-GLP-1 pairing. In the REIMAGINE phase 3 programme in type 2 diabetes, presented at the American Diabetes Association annual meeting in June 2026, once-weekly CagriSema lowered blood glucose and weight across several type 2 diabetes populations; the studies randomised participants to CagriSema, cagrilintide alone, semaglutide alone or placebo. The most common adverse events were gastrointestinal, and overall adverse-event rates were higher on the higher CagriSema dose than on placebo.
The UK position
No amylin analogue holds a UK marketing authorisation. Pramlintide was never licensed in the UK or EU; cagrilintide, eloralintide and petrelintide remain investigational. Under the Medicines Act 1968 and the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, a product intended for human use requires a marketing authorisation before it may be sold or supplied. Compounds offered for laboratory research sit outside that framework only while the research-use-only framing holds; they are not medicines and are not for human use.
Evidence grade
Moderate for the licensed-direction clinical data on CagriSema in obesity and type 2 diabetes; Limited for the wider long-acting amylin class, where most compounds have early-phase data only.
This article is AI-researched and editorially reviewed. It is provided for research and educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Research peptides are not licensed for human consumption in the UK.