Medication & Safety
Return and Refund Policy: What to Check Before You Buy
A clear return and refund policy tells you a lot about a seller before anything goes wrong. Here is what to check before...
Most cost comparisons put a monthly figure next to each drug and stop there. That produces a table that looks useful and answers the wrong question.
What determines whether you can afford a weight loss medication is the total across the course, and what determines whether it was worth it is what you got per rupee spent. This comparison covers both.
The comparison table
| Medication | Delivers | Trial duration | Local availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound) | 20.9 percent | 72 weeks | Import only |
| Semaglutide (Wegovy) | 14.9 percent | 68 weeks | Import only |
| Semaglutide (Ozempic) | Diabetes dose | — | Import only |
| Liraglutide (Saxenda) | 8.4 kg | 56 weeks | Import, inconsistent |
| Orforglipron | up to 12.4 percent | 72 weeks | Not available |
| Qsymia | 10.5 percent | 108 weeks | Limited |
| Contrave | 6.1 percent | 56 weeks | Limited |
| Orlistat (Xenical) | 5.8 kg | 4 years | Widely available |
| Dulaglutide (Trulicity) | ~3 kg | 40 weeks | Import only |
Imported GLP-1 injections generally run Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 per month in Pakistan, before anything else.
The four costs people forget
Dose escalation. Your quoted price is almost always the starting dose. Tirzepatide climbs from 2.5 mg to 15 mg over roughly twenty weeks. Semaglutide escalates over eight to sixteen. Budget for the dose you will settle on.
Consumption rate. A Saxenda pen holds 18 mg and lasts six days at full dose, so you need around five a month. A weekly semaglutide pen typically covers the month. Per-pen prices are not comparable.
Consultation and monitoring. Private clinics in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad charge roughly Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 initially, with follow-ups during escalation, plus baseline and periodic blood work.
Cold chain. Every injectable GLP-1 requires refrigeration. Proper handling costs money, and skipping it delivers product that may have degraded invisibly.
Together these add roughly 20 to 40 percent above the quoted injection price.
Why course total is the real number
The trial durations in that table are not incidental. They describe how long people took the drug to achieve the stated result.
STEP 1 ran 68 weeks, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. SURMOUNT-1 ran 72. XENDOS ran four years, published in Diabetes Care.
Multiply your expected mid-course monthly figure by the number of months you would realistically need. That is the commitment.
Most households doing that arithmetic honestly discover the total is beyond what they can sustain through exchange rate movement and supply interruptions.
Cost per kilogram changes the ranking
Monthly price ranks tirzepatide as most expensive and dulaglutide as cheap. Cost per kilogram lost reverses much of that.
Dulaglutide produces roughly 3 kg. Paying less per month for a drug doing a fraction of the work is not economising, it is spending less to achieve less.
Tirzepatide costs most per month and delivers most. Per kilogram it compares far better than its headline figure suggests.
The condition attached to that is completing the course. An abandoned course has an infinite cost per kilogram, because the weight comes back.
Where orlistat sits
Orlistat deserves separate mention because it is the one weight loss medication with genuine local availability.
No refrigeration. Not import-dependent. Available generically. That combination is unique in this category.
XENDOS recorded 5.8 kg over four years against 3.0 kg on placebo, plus a 37.3 percent relative reduction in progression to type 2 diabetes.
Its limitation is mechanical. Orlistat blocks fat absorption and does nothing about carbohydrate, sugar, portion size or appetite. In a market where much of the calorie load comes from roti, rice and sweet chai, that limitation is substantial.
For someone who eats a lot of fried food, it is a reasonable, affordable, obtainable option. For someone whose problem is quantity and hunger, it does not address the mechanism.
The interruption cost
This is the expense that ruins the arithmetic and appears in no comparison table.
A course interrupted by supply failure means appetite returns, weight regain follows, and restarting usually requires re-escalating from a lower dose because side-effect tolerance fades.
Two or three interruptions across a year can mean paying for eighteen months of medication to receive perhaps nine months of continuous effect.
In a market supplied entirely by informal import, this is the normal experience rather than bad luck.
What actually determines affordability
Three questions, in order.
Can you obtain it continuously for the full duration? If the answer is uncertain, the monthly price is irrelevant.
Can you verify what you are buying? No GLP-1 injectable is registered in Pakistan, so authenticity rests entirely on your supplier's word.
Can you sustain the total, not the month? Multiply across the course before committing.
If all three answers work, imported GLP-1 medication is genuinely effective and worth the money.
If any of them fails, you are buying an expensive partial course.
The locally registered comparison
That gap is why registered options exist here. GLP-1 pathway drops with nationwide delivery is a structurally different proposition from an imported pen, and it should be compared honestly rather than on effect size.
METASLIM™ is physician-reviewed at every stage rather than simply claimed. It is sublingual, removing the cold chain entirely. A physician reviews every order before dispatch, with that review built into the programme price rather than charged as a separate consultation. Supply does not depend on an import route.
It is not semaglutide or tirzepatide and does not produce their trial results. What it removes are the four failure modes above: unverifiable authenticity, cold chain risk, supply interruption and separate consultation costs.
Before comparing anything, confirm your starting BMI, since eligibility for every option here is anchored to it. Our guide to the cheapest GLP-1 option goes deeper on the value question, and Wegovy price in Pakistan explains the import cost structure.
The summary
Imported GLP-1 injections run Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 monthly, plus 20 to 40 percent in consultation, cold chain and monitoring.
Monthly price is the wrong comparison. Dose escalation, consumption rate and course length all change the total.
Cost per kilogram reverses much of the monthly ranking, and an abandoned course costs everything already spent.
Orlistat is the only option with reliable local availability, and it addresses fat absorption rather than appetite.
Supply interruption is the largest hidden expense in this market.
See current pricing and order options for a registered comparison.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified physician before starting any weight loss program, medication, or supplement.