Foundayo dosing schedule: the dose chart from the FDA label

Foundayo (orforglipron) is a once-daily GLP-1 tablet from Eli Lilly, approved by FDA on Apr 1, 2026 for chronic weight management in adults (FDA, Apr 1, 2026). Its dose ladder climbs in steps of at least 30 days. This page quotes the prescribing information revised 7/2026, the version on DailyMed when we checked on Oct 21, 2026 (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026). It is a reference, not a plan: talk to your prescriber before starting, changing or restarting a dose.

The label states: “Starting dosage is 0.8 mg once daily. After at least 30 days, increase dosage to 2.5 mg once daily.” The step to 5.5 mg follows after at least 30 days on 2.5 mg. Above 5.5 mg the label says the dose may be increased to the next level, depending on treatment response and tolerability, and “Maximum dosage is 17.2 mg once daily” (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026).

Two things the label does not do. It names no separate maintenance dose, and it gives no fixed calendar: “at least 30 days” is a floor, so any step can last longer. The day numbers in the last column are arithmetic on that floor, not a schedule anyone must follow.

Each strength is its own film-coated tablet, sold in bottles of 30 (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026). For what each bottle costs at each step, see the Foundayo savings card guide; this page does not list prices.

How to take Foundayo, per the label

The administration section is short (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026):

• Once daily, by mouth. “Take FOUNDAYO orally once daily, with or without food.”
• Swallow whole. Do not break, crush or chew the tablet.
• One tablet a day. Take no more than one tablet per day.
• No water or timing rule. The label sets no minimum or maximum amount of water and no waiting period before or after food. It does not tie the dose to a particular time of day.

Lilly’s approval release describes Foundayo as a pill that can be taken any time of day without food or water restrictions (Eli Lilly, Apr 1, 2026). For a side-by-side of the two pills, see Foundayo vs the Wegovy pill.

Missed doses: the 7-dose rule

The label does not name which lower dose to restart on. That choice belongs to your prescriber, who can weigh how long the gap was and how the earlier steps were tolerated.

For comparison, the Wegovy injection label sets its restart threshold at 2 or more consecutive missed weekly doses (Novo Nordisk, Jun 18, 2026). In both cases, after a long enough gap, escalation starts again from a lower step rather than at the old dose. The full Wegovy rules are on the Wegovy dosing schedule page.

Interactions that change the dose

Orforglipron is metabolized mainly by the liver enzyme CYP3A4, and the label builds several dose limits around that (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026). Two of the terms below need a definition. A CYP3A4 inhibitor is a drug that slows that enzyme, which can raise orforglipron levels; an inducer speeds it up, which can lower them. OATP1B is a liver transporter that some of the same drugs also block.

The contraceptive rule repeats with every step. On the earliest possible schedule, that means backup contraception during days 1–30, 31–60 and 61–90, and again for 30 days after any move to 9, 14.5 or 17.2 mg. The 9 mg cap also means that a patient on a qualifying strong CYP3A4 inhibitor would not use the 14.5 or 17.2 mg tablets. If you take any of these medicines, talk to your prescriber and pharmacist before starting Foundayo or changing a dose.

Pharmacokinetics: what a daily pill with a 1- to 2-day half-life means

Pharmacokinetics describes how a drug is absorbed, spread through the body and cleared. The label’s figures are below (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026).

A half-life of 29 to 49 hours is about 1.2 to 2 days. Because each tablet arrives while a good share of the earlier ones is still present, levels build up over the first days at a new dose; the label puts steady state at about 1 week. Absolute bioavailability of 77% means most of the swallowed dose reaches the bloodstream.

Weekly injections work on a different time scale. Semaglutide, the drug in Wegovy, has an elimination half-life of about 1 week (Novo Nordisk, Jun 18, 2026), so a single dose covers the whole week and levels change slowly. With Foundayo, the daily tablet does that job, and the shorter half-life means levels respond to a change, or a gap, within days rather than weeks. That is a qualitative comparison: we have not modeled orforglipron, and our plotting tools cover only the weekly injectable compounds. For the weekly side, see the semaglutide half-life guide.

Who the label covers

The approved use is narrow (FDA, Apr 1, 2026) (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026):

• Indication. An adjunct to a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity “to reduce excess body weight and maintain weight reduction long term.”
• Adults only. Adults with obesity, or adults with overweight and at least one weight-related comorbid condition. The indication text gives no BMI thresholds; BMI cut-offs appear only as trial entry criteria.
• Not for type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is not an approved indication. It appears in the label as a trial population and in warnings.
• Not for children. “Safety and effectiveness of FOUNDAYO have not been established in pediatric patients.” FDA deferred studies for ages 12 to under 18 (final report due Dec 2028) and 6 to under 12 (final report due Feb 2032), and waived them for ages 0 to under 6.

The label carries a boxed warning about the risk of thyroid C-cell tumors. It also notes that orforglipron is not pharmacologically active in rats or mice, did not cause tumors in rodents, and that the relevance to humans is undetermined. Foundayo is contraindicated in people with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2 (MEN 2), and in people with a known serious hypersensitivity to orforglipron or any ingredient (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026).

Trial results in the label

Label section 14 reports two 72-week, placebo-controlled trials. Trial 1 is ATTAIN-1, in participants without diabetes (n=3,127). Trial 2 is ATTAIN-2, in participants with type 2 diabetes and a BMI of at least 27 (n=1,613) (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026) (Eli Lilly, Apr 1, 2026).

These are the label’s numbers, which is why they can differ from figures in news coverage. Lilly’s headline “12.4%” for the highest dose is the efficacy estimand, which estimates the result if everyone had stayed on treatment. By the treatment-regimen estimand, which counts everyone randomized whether or not they kept taking the drug, the figure is 11.1%, the same value the label shows for 17.2 mg in Trial 1 (Eli Lilly, Apr 1, 2026).

In the label’s figures, Trial 2 participants (type 2 diabetes) had smaller mean changes than Trial 1 participants at every dose. These are separate trials, so that comparison needs the same care as any cross-trial comparison, including with Wegovy or other drugs: trials differ in population, duration and analysis.

Storage

The label says: “Store FOUNDAYO at room temperature 20°C to 25°C (68°F to 77°F).” Excursions between 15°C and 30°C are permitted (Eli Lilly, Jul 29, 2026). The approval letter sets expiry dating at 24 months from manufacture when stored at 20–25°C (FDA, Apr 1, 2026).

Approval timeline

Foundayo was the first new molecular entity approved under the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher pilot, and FDA called it “the fastest approval of an NME since 2002” (FDA, Apr 1, 2026). The launch dates come from Lilly’s releases (Eli Lilly, Apr 1, 2026) (Eli Lilly, Apr 9, 2026). Orforglipron is a small-molecule, non-peptide drug that Chugai discovered and licensed to Lilly in 2018 (Eli Lilly, Apr 1, 2026).

Related schedules

The Wegovy dosing schedule covers the weekly semaglutide injection and the once-daily Wegovy tablet, and the semaglutide dosage chart puts every semaglutide product on one page. For a direct comparison of the two GLP-1 pills, read Foundayo vs the Wegovy pill. For costs at each Foundayo step, see the Foundayo savings card guide.