How to Join a GLP-1 Clinical Trial: A Step-by-Step Guide

If you want a drug that is not approved yet, there are exactly two legal doors in the United States. One is a clinical trial. The other is expanded access, which is very narrow and requires a physician to apply on your behalf.

Everything else you might find online is a third thing, and it is not a door, it is a risk.

This guide walks through how trials actually work, how to find one near you, what you will be asked at screening, what it costs, what your rights are, and which of the big GLP-1 trials were open as of September 14, 2026.

None of this is medical advice. Whether a trial is a good idea for you personally is a conversation with your own healthcare provider.

Is there really a trial I could join?

There are a lot more than most people assume. Querying the ClinicalTrials.gov API on September 14, 2026 for interventional studies with the condition “obesity”, status “recruiting”, and a United States location returned 529 studies. Narrowing the same query to those mentioning GLP-1 returned 73 [1].

Treat both as order-of-magnitude figures rather than fixed counts. They move week to week as trials open and close, and they shift depending on how the search is worded — searching individual drug names instead of the term “GLP-1” returns a larger set, because most trials list the molecule (eloralintide, aleniglipron) rather than the class. Run the search yourself for a current number.

It is also worth knowing that Phase 3 obesity trials now enroll quickly. Viking Therapeutics reported in January 2026 that VANQUISH-1 had completed enrollment of approximately 4,650 adults; the registry record lists a target of 4,500 [1]. When a program opens, the window can close fast.

How do you find a trial near you?

Step 1: Search ClinicalTrials.gov

ClinicalTrials.gov is the US government registry and the authoritative source [1]. Everything else, including pharmaceutical company finders and commercial recruiting sites, is downstream of it.

The practical search:

1. Go to clinicaltrials.gov.
2. In “Condition/disease,” enter obesity (or “type 2 diabetes,” “sleep apnea,” “MASH,” depending on what you have).
3. In “Other terms,” you can enter a specific drug name, such as eloralintide or aleniglipron.
4. Set “Study status” to Recruiting and, if you want, Not yet recruiting to see what is opening.
5. Enter your ZIP code and a distance, for example 100 miles.

Two search tips that save time:

• Drugs get renamed. Amycretin became zenagamtide. MET-097i became berobenatide. CT-388 became enicepatide. HRS9531 became ribupatide. AMG 133 became maridebart cafraglutide. Search both names.
• Searching an NCT number directly is the fastest way to check any claim you read anywhere. If an article or a seller mentions a trial and you cannot find the NCT number, be skeptical.

Step 2: Read the eligibility section properly

Every study page has an “Eligibility” tab with inclusion and exclusion criteria. Read both lists, not just the first one.

Typical inclusion criteria for an adult obesity trial:

• Age 18 or older (some trials set an upper limit)
• BMI of 30 or higher, or 27 or higher with at least one weight-related condition such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obstructive sleep apnea or cardiovascular disease
• A documented history of trying to lose weight through diet
• Willingness to follow the dosing schedule and attend all visits

Typical exclusion criteria:

• Weight change of 5% or more in the past 90 days
• Prior bariatric surgery, or planned surgery during the study
• Device-based obesity treatment such as a gastric balloon
• Type 1 diabetes
• Current or recent use of another weight-loss medication (washout periods vary)
• Pregnancy, breastfeeding, or plans to become pregnant during the study
• A personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma or MEN2 (standard for this drug class)
• Certain psychiatric history, including active suicidal ideation
• Recent participation in another drug trial

Some of these are negotiable in the sense that a coordinator can tell you whether a washout period would make you eligible. Most are not.

Step 3: Contact the site

On the study page, open “Contacts and Locations.” Sites are listed individually, each with a recruiting status and usually a phone number or email for the study coordinator.

Call or email the site nearest you. Say you saw the study on ClinicalTrials.gov, give the NCT number, and ask whether they are still enrolling. Sites within one study open and close independently, so a study marked “recruiting” may have a full site near you and an open site two hours away.

Step 4: Use sponsor finders as a second pass

Most large companies run their own study finders, which are sometimes easier to use and sometimes list sites before the registry updates:

• Eli Lilly: trials.lilly.com
• Novo Nordisk: novonordisk-trials.com
• Amgen: amgentrials.com
• Roche: forpatients.roche.com
• Boehringer Ingelheim: trials.boehringer-ingelheim.com
• AstraZeneca: astrazenecaclinicaltrials.com
• Pfizer: pfizer.com/science/find-a-trial

ResearchMatch (researchmatch.org), run by a consortium of academic medical centers, lets you register once and be contacted about studies you might qualify for, rather than searching repeatedly [6].

A caution about commercial recruiting sites. Many pages that appear when you search “weight loss study near me” are lead-generation sites that sell your contact information. They are not necessarily fraudulent, but they are not the registry. If a site asks for payment of any kind to “match” you with a trial, stop: trial participation never costs the participant a fee.

What happens at screening?

Screening is usually one or two visits over a few weeks.

Expect: a full medical history, a physical exam, height, weight and waist measurement, blood pressure and heart rate, blood tests (including A1C and a lipid panel), a pregnancy test if applicable, an electrocardiogram, and a review of every medication and supplement you take. Some trials add imaging (a DEXA scan for body composition, FibroScan or MRI-PDFF for liver studies) or a sleep study for sleep apnea trials.

You will also go through the informed consent document. This is the most important part of the whole process and the part people rush.

The consent document must tell you: what the drug is, what is known about its risks, how long the study lasts, how many visits are required, what your chance of placebo is, what the alternatives are, what happens if you are injured, who pays for what, and that you can leave at any time.

Take it home. Read it when you are not sitting in a waiting room. Bring it to your own healthcare provider. You are allowed to do all of that, and good sites encourage it.

What does it cost, and do you get paid?

What the sponsor pays for: the investigational drug, all study-required visits, study labs, study imaging, and study procedures.

What you pay for: your routine medical care, anything unrelated to the study, and usually your own travel beyond whatever stipend is offered.

Stipends: most obesity trials pay per completed visit for time and travel. The amount varies widely by site and by visit burden. It must be stated in the consent form. It is compensation for inconvenience, not income.

Insurance: federal rules require most health plans to continue covering the routine patient costs of care you would have received anyway while you are enrolled in a qualifying clinical trial. The trial-specific costs are the sponsor’s. Call your plan if you are unsure.

What questions should you ask before you say yes?

Write these down and ask them out loud:

1. What is my chance of being randomized to placebo?
2. Is there an extension that lets placebo participants get the active drug at the end? (Increasingly common in large obesity trials, and worth knowing.)
3. How many visits, over how long, and how long is each visit? A 78-week Phase 3 trial can mean 20-plus visits.
4. Do I have to stop a medication I am currently taking? Many obesity trials require a washout from existing weight-loss drugs. That is a real cost, and it is a decision to make with your own provider.
5. What happens when the trial ends? Some sponsors offer continued access to the drug after the study; many do not. Ask before you enroll, because afterward there is nothing to negotiate.
6. Who do I call at 2 a.m. if something goes wrong? There should be a 24-hour number.
7. What are the known side effects so far? For this drug class, expect nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and constipation as the common ones, concentrated during dose escalation.
8. Will my own doctor be told what happened? Ask the site to share results and any unblinding information with your regular provider.

What are your rights?

• You can leave at any time, for any reason, without penalty and without losing your regular medical care.
• You must give informed consent before anything happens, and you can ask for as much time as you need.
• An institutional review board independent of the sponsor must approve and monitor the study.
• Large trials have independent data safety monitoring boards that can stop a study early for safety.
• You have the right to ask what arm you were in after the study is unblinded.
• You cannot be charged a fee to participate.

Which GLP-1 trials were open in September 2026?

A snapshot, not a recommendation. Everything here was listed as recruiting or opening on September 14, 2026. Verify current status at ClinicalTrials.gov before contacting anyone.

Oral GLP-1 pills

• Aleniglipron ACCOMPLISH-1 (NCT07654361, 3,600 participants) and ACCOMPLISH-2 (NCT07654374, 1,100)
• Elecoglipron Embold master protocol (NCT07667803, 4,500) and five diabetes trials

Amylin drugs

• Eloralintide ENLIGHTEN-1 (NCT07321886, 1,980), ENLIGHTEN-2 (NCT07282600), ENLIGHTEN-3 in sleep apnea (NCT07369011), ENLIGHTEN-4 in knee osteoarthritis (NCT07353931), and ENLIGHTEN-6 for people already on a weekly incretin (NCT07392190)
• AZD6234 SELENE 1 (NCT07784725, 2,500) and SELENE 3 as an add-on to incretins (NCT07776509)
• Cagrilintide RENEW 4 (NCT07745504)

Weekly dual agonists

• Enicepatide Enith1 (NCT07351045, 2,000) and Enith2 (NCT07351058, 1,600)
• Ribupatide KaiNETIC-1 (NCT07284875, 2,340), KaiNETIC-2 (NCT07284901), KaiNETIC-3 versus semaglutide (NCT07284979)

Monthly and long-acting

• Berobenatide US Phase 3 (NCT07595549, 954), recruiting. The SOLIS-1 combination Phase 2 (NCT07575932, 940) is no longer recruiting as of September 14, 2026 and is listed here only because it is widely referenced; do not contact sites expecting to enroll.
• MariTide MARITIME-CV (NCT07037433, 12,800), MARITIME-HF (NCT07037459), MARITIME-SWITCH for people moving off weekly drugs (NCT07575399), MARITIME-OSA-1 and OSA-2, and the two extension trials

Combination and add-on

• CagriSema dose-ranging versus semaglutide (NCT07564414, 2,500)
• Zenagamtide AMBITION 7 in type 2 diabetes (NCT07797335, 1,778)
• UBT251 Phase 2 dose-finding (NCT07395687)

Liver disease

• SYNERGY-Outcomes MASLD master protocol including retatrutide (NCT07165028, 4,500)
• Survodutide LIVERAGE (NCT06632444) and LIVERAGE-Cirrhosis (NCT06632457)
• Pemvidutide PERFORMA in MASH (NCT07795164)

Pediatric

• ADVANCE pediatric platform (NCT06672549)
• Cagrilintide and CagriSema in children and adolescents (NCT07253285)

Earliest-stage

• ARO-INHBE first-in-human (NCT06700538)
• ACCG-2671 first-in-human (NCT07815678)

Two patterns are worth noticing. First, the outcomes trials are the easiest large studies to get into, because they enroll thousands of people over years. Second, add-on and switch trials are a new category: SELENE 3, ENLIGHTEN-6 and MARITIME-SWITCH all recruit people who are already on a GLP-1 drug, which did not exist as a trial population three years ago.

What about expanded access?

Expanded access, sometimes called compassionate use, lets a specific patient receive an unapproved drug outside a trial. It is real, it is narrow, and it is often misunderstood.

You cannot apply yourself. A physician requests it from the company, then from the FDA, and an institutional review board has to approve it. The company can decline for any reason, including limited drug supply. A core requirement is that you are unable to join an ongoing trial of the same or a comparable drug.

As of September 14, 2026, there was one registered expanded access program in this space: Eli Lilly’s pre-approval single-patient program for retatrutide (NCT07629401) [5]. The published criteria are adults 18 or older, BMI of 35 or higher despite taking and tolerating the highest available dose of an approved weight management therapy, two or more serious or life-threatening obesity-related complications currently being treated, inability to join a retatrutide or comparable trial, and a documented discussion of all standard options including bariatric surgery.

Physician inquiries go to ClinicalTrials@lilly.com or 1-800-545-5979.

If you think you may fit those criteria, that is a conversation to start with your treating physician.

What is not a legal route

Products sold online under pipeline drug names, including retatrutide, VK2735, cagrilintide, survodutide, mazdutide and amycretin or zenagamtide, are not clinical trial supply and are not legitimate pharmaceuticals. The manufacturers of these drugs do not sell them to consumers, and in most cases the drug is not approved anywhere in the world, so there is no authentic version in circulation at all.

Labels like “research use only,” “not for human consumption,” “reference standard” or “compassionate access” are sometimes used to imply legitimacy. They do not indicate that anyone verified the identity, purity, sterility or dose of what is in the vial.

The FDA has issued warnings about unapproved GLP-1 products sold for weight loss, including reports of dosing errors and adverse events.

If a supplier is shipping you a drug without a physician, an FDA application and an institutional review board, it is not expanded access and it is not a trial.

A short version

1. Search ClinicalTrials.gov by condition, status “Recruiting,” and your ZIP code.
2. Read both the inclusion and the exclusion criteria.
3. Contact the study coordinator at the nearest site.
4. Ask about placebo odds, visit burden, required washouts, and post-trial access.
5. Take the consent form home and review it with your own healthcare provider.
6. Remember you can leave at any time.

A clinical trial is research, not treatment. That is not a reason to avoid one, but it is the right frame for the decision. Talk to your healthcare provider first.

Sources

1. ClinicalTrials.gov — https://clinicaltrials.gov/
2. ClinicalTrials.gov, “Learn About Studies” — https://clinicaltrials.gov/study-basics/learn-about-studies
3. FDA, “Clinical Trials: What Patients Need to Know” — https://www.fda.gov/patients/clinical-trials-what-patients-need-know
4. NIH, “NIH Clinical Research Trials and You” — https://www.nih.gov/health-information/nih-clinical-research-trials-you
5. ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT07629401 (retatrutide pre-approval expanded access) — https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07629401
6. ResearchMatch — https://www.researchmatch.org/
7. Eli Lilly trial finder — https://trials.lilly.com/
8. Novo Nordisk trial finder — https://www.novonordisk-trials.com/
9. Amgen trial finder — https://www.amgentrials.com/
10. Roche trial finder — https://forpatients.roche.com/
11. Boehringer Ingelheim trial finder — https://www.trials.boehringer-ingelheim.com/
12. AstraZeneca trial finder — https://www.astrazenecaclinicaltrials.com/
13. Pfizer trial finder — https://www.pfizer.com/science/find-a-trial