Six molecules with a current United States label act on the GLP-1 receptor. That is the whole answer to "which drugs are GLP-1s", and it is short. What makes the question worth a page is that the popular list is longer than the real one in one direction and shorter in another: a drug most people would name first is not only a GLP-1, and a drug many people assume belongs here does not act on the receptor at all.
This page is a register, read from the FDA's DailyMed label database on 2026-09-16 and dated accordingly. It counts molecules, not brand names, and it says how it counted.
The register, as read on 2026-09-16
| Molecule | Current US brands | What its own label calls it | Distinct labelers | Generic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semaglutide | Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus | GLP-1 analogue, GLP-1 receptor agonist | 2 | no |
| Tirzepatide | Mounjaro, Zepbound | GIP receptor and GLP-1 receptor agonist | 2 | no |
| Dulaglutide | Trulicity | GLP-1 receptor agonist | 2 | no |
| Liraglutide | Victoza, Saxenda, Xultophy | GLP-1 receptor agonist | 13 | yes |
| Exenatide | Byetta | GLP-1 receptor agonist | 3 | yes (one) |
| Lixisenatide | Soliqua (combination only) | GLP-1 receptor agonist | 1 | no |
Metformin is not in the table, and the reason is below.
The three answers
Ask "is this drug a GLP-1" of the medicines people actually ask about and three different answers come back.
Yes, straightforwardly. Semaglutide, dulaglutide, liraglutide, exenatide and lixisenatide each bind one receptor, and it is the GLP-1 receptor. Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus are all semaglutide; Victoza and Saxenda are both liraglutide. The brand count is larger than the molecule count because the same molecule is approved separately for different indications, which is a regulatory fact rather than a pharmacological one.
Not only. Tirzepatide's label opens its Mechanism of Action section with a sentence that settles the question and is quoted here in full: "Tirzepatide is a GIP receptor and GLP-1 receptor agonist." It goes on to say that tirzepatide "selectively binds to and activates both the GIP and GLP-1 receptors, the targets for native GIP and GLP-1". Mounjaro and Zepbound are that molecule. Describing them as GLP-1s is the shorthand everyone uses, including pharmacists, and it is not exactly wrong — but it is the kind of shorthand that becomes wrong the moment a result from a single-receptor drug is carried across to it, or the reverse.
No. Metformin does not act on the GLP-1 receptor.
Metformin, which is the one people ask about
Metformin turns up in this question more than any other non-GLP-1, and the reason is circumstantial: it is the old, cheap, widely prescribed type 2 diabetes medicine that many people were taking before these drugs existed, so it sits in the same conversation. It does not sit in the same class.
Its own label is explicit about the difference. Metformin decreases hepatic glucose production, decreases intestinal absorption of glucose, and improves insulin sensitivity — and the label states that its pharmacologic mechanisms of action "are different from other classes of oral antihyperglycemic agents". There is no GLP-1 receptor anywhere in that description, because metformin does not go near it.
What is generic today, and what is not
The generic question has a cleaner answer than the general debate suggests, and the answer is dated.
On 2026-09-16, liraglutide carried 22 current DailyMed listings from 13 distinct labelers, and eleven of those labelers are companies other than Novo Nordisk — Teva, Biocon, Cipla, Hikma, Lupin, Meitheal, NorthstarRx, Orbicular and Hybio among them. That is not a single generic entrant; it is a crowded generic field, and it has arrived on the oldest daily molecule in the class rather than on the ones people are waiting for.
Exenatide has one generic, from Amneal, alongside AstraZeneca's Byetta.
Semaglutide, tirzepatide and dulaglutide have none. Each returned listings from exactly two labelers, and in every one of the three cases the second is a repackager rather than a second manufacturer. The patent timeline behind that is a separate question and we treat it separately on when Ozempic goes generic.
Two further things the register shows and the general conversation does not. Lixisenatide has no standalone listing at all: its single current listing is Sanofi's SOLIQUA 100/33, where it is combined with insulin glargine, so in the United States it reaches patients only inside an insulin product. And exenatide's once-weekly extended-release form returned no current listing either — the Amneal generic is the twice-daily form, as its own label's dosing section makes clear, not the weekly one. Both statements describe what the database held on the date read, which is the only thing a register can honestly claim; neither is a statement about why.
How this was counted, and one trap in the counting
Every figure above comes from the DailyMed SPL service, queried by generic drug name on 2026-09-16, with the full result set read rather than the first page.
The trap is worth naming because it would have changed several numbers. A DailyMed listing is not a product. Repackagers file their own labels for medicines they did not manufacture, and one repackager — A-S Medication Solutions — accounts for six of semaglutide's nine listings, six of tirzepatide's eight, and six of dulaglutide's seven. Counted naively, semaglutide looks like a nine-label molecule with a busy field behind it. Counted by distinct labeler, it is one manufacturer and one repackager. The table above reports distinct labelers for that reason, and liraglutide's 13 is the figure that survives the correction rather than one produced by it.
For what these molecules have in common once the classification is settled — a hormone the body already makes, and the very short life it has in circulation — see natural GLP-1. For the drugs sold as GLP-1s without being any of the six, see GLP-1 supplements and GLP-1 patches.
Nothing on this page is a dose, a schedule or a recommendation, and nothing here says which of these medicines is appropriate for anyone. Corrections go to the contact page.