News · Clinical trials

SOUL: Oral Semaglutide Cuts Major Cardiovascular Events by 14% in High-Risk Type 2 Diabetes

A 9,647-patient outcomes trial reporting a 14% reduction in MACE and 22% in heart failure events — a hard-endpoint result in a field dominated by surrogate measures.

Event date 2026-06-10 · Published 2026-07-24 · EV-0814

What was reported

SOUL enrolled 9,647 high-risk patients with type 2 diabetes and reported that oral semaglutide reduced major adverse cardiovascular events by 14% and heart failure events by 22%.

Size and endpoint both matter here. Most published work in this category measures weight — a surrogate. SOUL measured cardiovascular events, which is the outcome the surrogate is supposed to predict, in a population large enough to detect a difference.

Why this strengthens the oral formulation specifically

Oral semaglutide's approval for weight management rested on the OASIS programme and on SELECT, the cardiovascular outcomes trial for the injectable. SOUL adds outcomes evidence generated with the oral formulation itself rather than inherited from the injectable.

That distinction is the same one this publication applies to compounded preparations: evidence generated with one formulation does not automatically transfer to another. SOUL closes that gap for oral semaglutide in a way no compounded product has for any indication.

How to read a 14% relative reduction

Relative risk reduction is the most quotable form of a result and the least informative. A 14% reduction on a high baseline event rate is a substantial absolute benefit; on a low one it is small. This trial enrolled high-risk patients specifically, which pushes the baseline rate up and makes the absolute benefit larger — but the absolute figures belong beside the relative one, and we have recorded a task to capture them from the primary publication.

The 22% heart failure figure is consistent with the SUMMIT result for tirzepatide in obesity-related heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, which reported a 38% reduction in a combined endpoint. Different drugs, different populations, different endpoints — but a coherent direction across the class.

What it does not establish

Benefit in people without type 2 diabetes or without elevated cardiovascular risk. Benefit at weight-management doses in a weight-management population. Anything about compounded oral or sublingual preparations, which appear in no cardiovascular outcomes trial and for which bioavailability is unpublished.

It also does not establish that the oral route is superior to the injectable. It establishes that the oral route produces outcomes benefit, which is a different and more modest claim.

Where this sits in a decision

For a patient with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular risk, this is the kind of evidence that should weigh more heavily than a weight-loss percentage. Hard-endpoint data in a large population is the strongest thing available in this field, and there is very little of it.

For a patient choosing between an approved oral at $149 and a compounded injectable at a similar price, it is another element on the approved side of the ledger — not because the compounded product has been shown worse, but because nothing has been shown about it at all.

Questions readers actually ask