Tirzepatide mastery course
Unit 5 of 12

Clinical trials: the SURPASS program

The evidence that earned the first approval came from SURPASS, a family of large phase 3 trials that pitted tirzepatide…

How tirzepatide was tested in type 2 diabetes

The evidence that earned the first approval came from SURPASS, a family of large phase 3 trials that pitted tirzepatide against placebo, against insulin, and against semaglutide. This unit reads those trials the way a skeptic should: what was compared, how big the effect was, and where the caveats hide.

The through-line is consistency. Across very different comparators and populations, all three doses beat everything they were tested against on blood sugar.

Key terms

The SURPASS trials at a glance


How far blood sugar fell


The semaglutide head-to-head


Weight loss in the diabetes trials


Consistency across populations