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Cagrilintide

Long-acting amylin analog

Metabolic & Fat LossInjectable✅ Clinically validated

Cagrilintide (Long-acting amylin analog) is a metabolic & fat loss research compound. Lipidated amylin-receptor agonist — suppresses appetite and glucagon and slows gastric emptying (no insulin stimulation); pairs with semaglutide as CagriSema.

Research & educational use only. The information below summarizes published research and mechanisms. It is not medical advice or a recommendation for human use. The protocol that uses it — dosing, sequence and what to retest — is inside Skool ($10/mo).

Cagrilintide quick facts

Reported research dosing0.3mg-4.5mg
RouteSubq
Cycle lengthAs Long As Needed
Frequency1-2x Weekly (Split Dose)
Half-life~7–8 days (159–195 hrs)
FormsInjectable
Evidence levelHuman trials (CagriSema)
Coach Cam’s take

Amylin is the missing puzzle piece — stacks beautifully with a GLP-1 for satiety.

How Cagrilintide works

Lipidated amylin-receptor agonist — suppresses appetite and glucagon and slows gastric emptying (no insulin stimulation); pairs with semaglutide as CagriSema.

Proposed benefits

Appetite and satiety support (amylin analog), often stacked with GLP-1s.

Where to get Cagrilintide

Buy Cagrilintide at AminoWell USA →
Use code CAMERON at checkout

Cagrilintide reconstitution calculator

Research reconstitution calculator

For research reconstitution math — 100 units = 1 mL on a U-100 syringe. Enter the vial size and acetic acid/bac water to convert a research amount into syringe units.
U-100 syringe
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Enter the vial size to calculate

Bacteriostatic water is the diluent — sterile water with 0.9% benzyl alcohol, which is what lets a vial be drawn from more than once. It does not come with the vial, and unlike the compound it is bought again every time.

Need bacteriostatic water? Get it at AminoWell USA (my company) → Code CAMERON.

The evidence for Cagrilintide

Graded by what exists behind each claim.

✅ Clinically validated

📊 Correlative data

🧪 Theoretical / extrapolated

How to read these tiers: they say how much human evidence exists, not how well something works — and ✗ flags harm, never a disappointing trial. How the evidence tiers work →

What Cagrilintide actually does

Cagrilintide is a long-acting analog of amylin, and the problem it was built to solve is that amylin is an amyloid. The hallmark of the native pancreatic hormone is its high propensity to form amyloid fibrils, which is what made it a hard drug design problem in the first place; the earlier analog in this class needed three injections a day because of its short half-life Kruse 2021. Cagrilintide is the lipidated, stabilized answer to both problems at once: a molecule that stays soluble and lasts a week.

The receptor question here is not GLP-1 versus amylin. It is amylin versus calcitonin, and the structures say cagrilintide barely distinguishes them. An amylin receptor is the calcitonin receptor (CTR) in complex with a receptor-activity-modifying protein: CTR+RAMP1 is AMY1, CTR+RAMP2 is AMY2, CTR+RAMP3 is AMY3. Cryo-EM structures have been solved of cagrilintide bound to AMY1R, AMY2R, AMY3R and CTR in the Gs-coupled active state, and the reported binding mode is amylin-like at all of them Cao 2025. A parallel structural study describes a shared ‘bypass’ binding mode that explicitly enables non-specific binding and activation across different receptors Gu 2025.

That non-selectivity is the design, not a defect — and it has a name. Molecules of this shape are dual amylin and calcitonin receptor agonists, and the argument for hitting both is that the calcitonin arm sustains the effect where a pure amylin agonist desensitizes. It is an argument, and the mouse work below is the closest anyone has come to testing it.

Which receptor actually produces the weight loss, answered by knockout. In RAMP1/RAMP3 knockout mice, cagrilintide lowered body weight (−3.4 ± 0.51 g, P < 0.005, n = 8 per group) and cut day-one food intake from 2.7 ± 0.2 g on vehicle to 1.2 ± 0.1 g, P < 0.0001. Salmon calcitonin, which prefers the bare calcitonin receptor, increased body weight instead (+0.60 ± 0.38 g, P < 0.01), and the authors attribute cagrilintide’s effect to brain amylin receptors 1 and 3 Carvas 2025.

Read those two paragraphs together and the ratio question has a functional answer even though no potency table has been published: cagrilintide binds CTR and the AMY receptors alike, and only the RAMP-containing ones produce weight loss. Everything it does at bare CTR is, for the purpose people buy it for, off-target — and bare CTR is where calcitonin’s effects on bone and serum calcium live. Nobody in this market states that, and it is the single most useful sentence on this page.

Cell, rodent, human — and where it stops

Step one, chemistry. Amylin’s fibril problem, and a lipidated analog engineered around it for once-weekly dosing Kruse 2021.

Step two, structures. Cryo-EM at AMY1R, AMY2R, AMY3R and CTR Cao 2025, and an independent structural account of the ‘bypass’ mode that makes the cross-receptor activation possible Gu 2025.

Step three, mice, with a genetic control. RAMP1/RAMP3 knockouts, cagrilintide against salmon calcitonin against vehicle, 8 animals per group, weight and food intake as read-outs Carvas 2025.

Step four, humans — and here is the problem with this compound’s entire clinical record. The phase 3 program studies cagrilintide as half of a combination. In REDEFINE 1 (NCT05567796), 3,417 participants were randomized over 68 weeks: 2,108 to cagrilintide–semaglutide, 302 to semaglutide alone, 302 to cagrilintide alone, and 705 to placebo. The primary endpoint, estimated mean percent change in body weight at week 68, was −20.4% on the combination against −3.0% on placebo, an estimated difference of −17.3 percentage points, and it was met. Gastrointestinal adverse events affected 79.6% of the combination group against 39.9% on placebo Garvey 2025.

Now the sentence that matters for this page: the abstract does not report what the 302 people on cagrilintide alone weighed at week 68. Three hundred and two participants took this exact compound as monotherapy for sixty-eight weeks in a phase 3 trial, and the headline number that circulates for it — the one on every vendor page — is the combination’s −20.4% Garvey 2025.

Step five, the second phase 3, where the same thing happens again. REIMAGINE 2 (NCT06065540) randomized 2,713 people with type 2 diabetes over 68 weeks across six arms: cagrilintide–semaglutide 2.4 mg each (n = 603), semaglutide 2.4 mg (n = 605), cagrilintide 2.4 mg alone (n = 152), cagrilintide–semaglutide 1.0 mg each (n = 595), semaglutide 1.0 mg (n = 609) and placebo (n = 149). Mean baseline HbA1c 8.2% (SD 0.9). The primary endpoint was HbA1c change and it was met: −1.91 percentage points on the combination against −1.75 on semaglutide 2.4 mg. Adverse events occurred in 86.9% (combination), 81.2% (semaglutide 2.4 mg), 82.2% (cagrilintide 2.4 mg alone) and 70.5% (placebo) Buse 2026.

Step six, two clean human pharmacology studies that do belong to cagrilintide alone. A thorough QT study (NCT05804162) in 105 participants — 53 on cagrilintide, 52 on placebo — measured time-matched change from baseline in Fridericia-corrected QT at 12, 24, 48 and 72 hours after the last 4.5 mg dose; the upper limits of the two-sided 90% confidence intervals stayed below 10 ms at every time point Gabe 2024. And two impairment studies — 33 participants across normal, mild, moderate and severe renal impairment, and 32 participants across the same grades of hepatic impairment — found exposure ratios of 0.99 to 1.23 with no clinically relevant differences Nielsen 2026.

The obstacles, one at a time. (1) Every published phase 3 efficacy number for this molecule is a combination number, while 454 people across two trials took it alone and their results are not in the abstracts Garvey 2025 Buse 2026. (2) No potency ratio between the AMY receptors and bare CTR has been published, so the structural non-selectivity Cao 2025 Gu 2025 cannot be quantified. (3) The knockout experiment that assigns the effect to AMY1 and AMY3 was done in mice Carvas 2025. (4) No calcium, bone-turnover or bone-density data from any human trial, despite structurally demonstrated calcitonin receptor activation. (5) The card’s dose range, 0.3–4.5 mg, comes from the dose-finding era; the phase 3 dose is 2.4 mg Buse 2026 and the QT study dosed 4.5 mg Gabe 2024.

Cagrilintide pharmacokinetics — how much of it actually gets in

The card says ‘~7–8 days (159–195 hrs)’. That is a precise-looking figure, and none of the eight papers behind this page states it. The two human pharmacokinetic studies that exist report exposure ratios rather than a half-life Nielsen 2026. So treat the card’s range as an inference from once-weekly dosing rather than as a measurement, and note that the inference is a reasonable one: four to five half-lives is what a weekly peptide needs to reach steady state, which places it in the 5-to-8-day neighborhood.

What holds it in the body. Lipidation Kruse 2021. A fatty acyl chain binds albumin reversibly, and albumin-bound peptide is too large to be filtered at the glomerulus and is shielded from circulating peptidases; the free fraction is replenished continuously from that reservoir. This is the same principle as every weekly agent in this cohort.

What clears it — and there is a real measurement here that is worth more than the missing half-life. Exposure was essentially unchanged across mild, moderate and severe renal impairment and across mild, moderate and severe hepatic impairment, with AUC ratios of 0.99 to 1.23 Nielsen 2026. A drug that is indifferent to both organs is not being cleared principally by either. What is left is proteolysis of the free fraction in plasma and tissue, which is exactly what you would predict for an albumin-bound peptide and is rarely demonstrated this cleanly.

What degrades it, at the molecular level. Peptide bonds, cut by plasma and tissue peptidases. There is no cytochrome involvement, so there is no metabolic drug interaction; the interaction that matters is mechanical, because amylin agonism slows gastric emptying and therefore changes the absorption rate of anything swallowed with it.

The formulation risk that is specific to this molecule. The parent hormone’s defining chemical behavior is fibril formation Kruse 2021. Aggregation propensity is a property that engineering suppresses rather than abolishes, and it is concentration-, temperature- and pH-dependent. For a reconstituted research-market vial that means the storage conditions are not boilerplate: a cloudy or stringy solution in this particular compound is the failure mode its whole design was built to avoid.

The oral barrier and the route. Absolute, and subcutaneous. Every dose in every study cited here was injected weekly.

What would have to be true, and how you would know it was not

Four predictions. The second is the one this compound’s own structural biology demands and no trial has reported.

1. HbA1c and fasting insulin should fall, and less than people expect. In the diabetes phase 3, the combination beat semaglutide alone by 0.16 percentage points of HbA1c — statistically significant, clinically modest Buse 2026. Draw HbA1c and fasting insulin at baseline, 12 and 24 weeks. Amylin’s glycemic contribution is mostly post-prandial and mostly through gastric emptying, so a large HbA1c move from cagrilintide alone would be a surprise rather than a confirmation.

2. Serum calcium is the missing measurement, and it is on a panel you already order. Cagrilintide activates the bare calcitonin receptor in the Gs-coupled active state Cao 2025 Gu 2025, and calcitonin’s defining action is lowering serum calcium by suppressing osteoclasts. A CMP contains calcium. Draw it at baseline and at 12 and 24 weeks. The prediction is a small fall or none; a reproducible fall would be the first human evidence that the calcitonin arm is engaged at ordinary doses, and it would move the bone question from theoretical to real.

3. Resting heart rate should NOT rise, and that is the prediction that distinguishes this drug from everything else on this shelf. Incretin agonists raise resting pulse as a class effect. Amylin agonism has no such mechanism, and the thorough QT study found the upper bound of the QTcF change below 10 ms at 12, 24, 48 and 72 hours after a 4.5 mg dose Gabe 2024. Take a seated morning pulse before caffeine for a week before starting and weekly after. A pulse that climbs 8–10 beats on what is sold as cagrilintide is evidence of an incretin in the vial, and for a research-market purchase that is the cheapest identity check available.

4. And the prediction that cuts against the compound. The −20.4% number attached to this molecule everywhere belongs to cagrilintide plus semaglutide, in 2,108 people Garvey 2025. Anyone running cagrilintide alone should expect a substantially smaller result — and should record their own weekly weight against it, because the honest comparator does not exist in the published abstracts. If a solo user matches 20% over 68 weeks, either the monotherapy arm was far better than anyone has said, or something else is in the vial.

What nobody has tested yet

Five experiments, and the first one has already been done — the result simply has not been published.

1. The monotherapy result exists and nobody can read it. 302 people took cagrilintide alone for 68 weeks in REDEFINE 1 and 152 took it alone for 68 weeks in REIMAGINE 2 Garvey 2025 Buse 2026. That is 454 people of monotherapy data at phase 3 quality, and neither abstract states their weight change. Publishing one number for each arm would tell every buyer of this compound what it actually does on its own.

2. Nobody has published the AMY-to-CTR potency ratio. Four cryo-EM structures have been solved Cao 2025 and a second group has described the binding mode independently Gu 2025, and there is still no table of EC50 values at AMY1, AMY2, AMY3 and bare CTR. The assay is routine; the number decides how much calcitonin pharmacology a user is buying with their amylin.

3. Nobody has measured bone. Chronic calcitonin receptor agonism suppresses osteoclasts, and the closest published comparison in this Vault is a different non-erythropoietic peptide that raised murine bone mineral density by roughly 5% in a month Awida 2021. Cagrilintide has been given to thousands of people for 68 weeks Garvey 2025 and no bone-turnover marker, no calcium and no densitometry appears in the abstract record.

4. Nobody has tested whether amylin resets the defended weight after the drug stops. The theoretical case for the amylin axis is that it lowers the body’s defended set point rather than only opposing intake. The experiment is a randomized withdrawal: stop the drug at week 68 and follow weight for a year against a GLP-1 arm stopped the same week. Nobody has run it for this molecule, and it is the difference between a treatment and a cure.

5. Nobody has compared it head-to-head with the older amylin analog at matched receptor occupancy. The earlier drug needed three injections a day Kruse 2021; this one needs one a week. Whether a flat weekly exposure produces more, less or the same effect than three daily peaks — at the same total receptor engagement — has never been measured, and it is the whole question of whether continuous amylin signaling desensitizes.

Cagrilintide — its own safety story, not its class's

The class block on this page is written for GLP-1 receptor agonists. This compound is not one, and five things below are its own.

1. It has a negative thorough QT study, which almost nothing else in this catalog does. 105 participants, 53 on drug, QTcF measured at four time points after a 4.5 mg dose, all upper confidence bounds under 10 ms Gabe 2024. That is a real, regulator-grade cardiac safety result for the molecule alone, and it is stronger evidence than most compounds here will ever have.

2. Renal and hepatic impairment do not change exposure. AUC ratios 0.99 to 1.23 across mild, moderate and severe impairment of each organ, in 33 and 32 participants respectively Nielsen 2026. This is unusual and it is genuinely useful: it means the two organ systems that normally force dose adjustment do not for this drug.

3. Its own gastrointestinal burden is smaller than the combination’s, and the numbers separate cleanly. On the combination, gastrointestinal adverse events hit 79.6% against 39.9% on placebo Garvey 2025. In the diabetes trial, total adverse events were 82.2% on cagrilintide alone against 70.5% on placebo — about twelve percentage points — while the combination sat at 86.9% Buse 2026. Most of the misery in CagriSema belongs to the GLP-1 half.

4. The calcitonin receptor is this molecule’s unmeasured risk. It activates bare CTR structurally Cao 2025 Gu 2025 and no human trial has reported serum calcium or bone markers. This is not a warning that something bad has happened; it is a statement that the obvious question raised by the drug’s own structural biology has not been asked in a person.

5. The aggregation question, which belongs in a safety section rather than a storage note. Native amylin is amyloidogenic Kruse 2021, and injecting an aggregated peptide is a different immunological proposition from injecting a soluble one. The engineered molecule is stabilized, but nothing published describes how a research-market vial behaves after reconstitution, warm shipping or repeated withdrawal — and this is the one compound in this cohort where that specific failure mode is written into the parent hormone’s chemistry.

Sources read for this page

Cagrilintide — safety, predicted from mechanism

Predicted from mechanism, not from a human safety trial. How that reasoning works →

What the mechanism predicts

Derived from the molecule, not a trial.

What has actually been reported

How to reduce the risk

Same mechanism as the prediction.

What it does to your bloodwork

A fact about the assay.

Don't run this if

The honest unknown

Not medical advice. If you take prescription medication or have a diagnosed condition, check this with a pharmacist or doctor.

When to take it

Any time — but the same day each week

With a half-life measured in days you are dosing into a standing level, so the hour is irrelevant and the consistency is not. Pick a day and hold it; drifting the interval is what produces the peaks and troughs people mistake for the drug not working.

Food makes no meaningful difference at this half-life.

From half-life and route, not a dosing trial.

Cagrilintide — interference & stacking

Predicted from mechanism, not from an interaction study. How mechanism-predicted claims are made →

What Cagrilintide moves on your bloodwork

Expected direction, not a measured one.

The pattern with this class is that the frightening-looking numbers (lipase) are usually fine and the boring ones (ferritin, B12) are where the real damage happens.

Everything on this page, in an order

This one is free and stays free. What Skool adds is the rest of the shelf — 278 compounds and 371 supplements with the protocol, the stack order and the bloodwork to run beside it.

Join Skool — $10/mo →

Bloodwork to run alongside Cagrilintide

Baseline first, then again at 8–12 weeks.

MarkerWhat it’s watching for
HbA1c (Hemoglobin A1c)Baseline — an amylin analog, usually paired with a GLP-1
Fasting InsulinThe metabolic readout
Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP)Glucose, liver and kidney
LipaseMonitored alongside whatever incretin it's paired with

The “On a GLP-1 (Semaglutide / Tirzepatide)” panel covers these in one order — 11 markers, $148.05 with the discount applied.

Check results you already have → · All 103 markers A–Z

Cagrilintide — frequently asked questions

What is Cagrilintide?

Cagrilintide (Long-acting amylin analog) is a metabolic & fat loss research compound. Lipidated amylin-receptor agonist — suppresses appetite and glucagon and slows gastric emptying (no insulin stimulation); pairs with semaglutide as CagriSema.

What dosing does the research reference for Cagrilintide?

In the research literature, Cagrilintide is referenced in the 0.3mg-4.5mg range, 1-2x Weekly (Split Dose). It is supplied as a lyophilized powder and reconstituted with acetic acid/bac water; the calculator above converts a research amount into syringe units. For research use only — not a recommendation for human use.

What is the half-life of Cagrilintide?

Cagrilintide has an approximate half-life of ~7–8 days (159–195 hrs), which is part of what determines how often it's dosed.

What's the evidence behind Cagrilintide?

Current evidence level: Human trials (CagriSema). Cagrilintide is offered for research purposes only and is not an approved medicine.

Cagrilintide inside a finished plan

One arm of 2 Protocol Blueprints, free to read in full.

The Fat Loss Blueprint16 weeks · Cagrilintide runs alongside the appetite armThe Metabolic Health Blueprint16 weeks · Cagrilintide runs alongside the incretin arm

What Cagrilintide is used for

Cagrilintide appears under 2 goals in the goal router.

🔥 Lose fatAppetite & satiety signaling📉 Metabolic health & insulin sensitivityIncretin & satiety signaling

Where this goes next

The full protocol$10/mo

Cagrilintide is the appetite arm of this plan. The page above is the free breakdown of one compound; the plan it belongs to — the dosing, the order to correct things in, the week-by-week schedule and what to retest — is a lesson inside Skool.

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