Foundayo dosage chart: all six strengths and the 30-day ladder

Before you read. This page reproduces what the FDA label says about Foundayo dosing. It is educational and does not replace your Medication Guide, pharmacist, prescriber, diagnosis, or emergency care. It is not a schedule to follow on your own. Your prescription is set by your prescriber, and if anything here differs from what they told you, their instruction wins. Nothing here tells you to start, stop, increase, or decrease a dose.

Quick answer

Foundayo (orforglipron) comes in six tablet strengths: 0.8 mg, 2.5 mg, 5.5 mg, 9 mg, 14.5 mg and 17.2 mg. All are once daily, taken with or without food.

The label starts everyone at 0.8 mg. After at least 30 days it moves to 2.5 mg, then after at least 30 more days to 5.5 mg. Above that the ladder stops being automatic: the dosage may be increased to 9 mg, 14.5 mg, or 17.2 mg after at least 30 days on the current dose, based on treatment response and tolerability. The maximum is 17.2 mg once daily.

Two numbers matter. Thirty days is the minimum time on any step. And five steps separate the starting dose from the maximum — which is why reaching 17.2 mg takes roughly five months at the fastest permitted pace, and often longer.

Log your dose changes in Takely →

The full Foundayo dosage chart

Here is the whole ladder in one table, as the label sets it out.

Step	Dose	Minimum time before the next step	Status in the label
1	0.8 mg once daily	30 days	Starting dosage — everyone begins here
2	2.5 mg once daily	30 days	Scheduled increase
3	5.5 mg once daily	30 days	Scheduled increase
4	9 mg once daily	30 days	Optional — based on response and tolerability
5	14.5 mg once daily	30 days	Optional — based on response and tolerability
6	17.2 mg once daily	—	Maximum dosage

The label's own wording for the first three steps is direct: the starting dosage is 0.8 mg once daily; after at least 30 days on the 0.8 mg dosage, increase the dosage to 2.5 mg once daily; after at least 30 days on the 2.5 mg dosage, increase the dosage to 5.5 mg once daily.

For the last three it changes verb. The dosage may be increased to the next dosage level after at least 30 days on the current dosage, based on treatment response and tolerability.

The difference between "increase" and "may be increased"

That verb change is the most useful thing on this page, and it is the thing a chart alone hides.

Steps 1 to 3 are written as a schedule. Steps 4 to 6 are written as a decision. Nothing in the label says everyone ends at 17.2 mg, and nothing says a higher dose is a goal. Above 5.5 mg the label hands the question to a prescriber and gives two criteria: treatment response and tolerability.

So if you are on 5.5 mg and have been for a while, that is not the ladder stalling. It may be the ladder working exactly as written.

This also means the phrase "target dose," which circulates freely in patient forums, does not appear in the escalation instruction in the sense people usually mean it. There is a maximum dosage, which is 17.2 mg. A maximum is a ceiling, not a destination.

How long does it take to reach the maximum dose?

At the fastest pace the label permits, about five months.

Thirty days each on 0.8, 2.5, 5.5, 9 and 14.5 mg gets you to 17.2 mg in roughly 150 days. That is a floor, not a forecast. Every step above 5.5 mg is conditional, and a prescriber can hold a dose longer, or not raise it at all.

Reaching	Minimum elapsed time
2.5 mg	About 1 month
5.5 mg	About 2 months
9 mg	About 3 months
14.5 mg	About 4 months
17.2 mg	About 5 months

Why so gradual? Because gastrointestinal side effects on this drug class are dose-related and cluster during escalation. Foundayo's label reports nausea at 26% on 5.5 mg, 34% on 9 mg and 35% on 17.2 mg, against 10% on placebo, with constipation, diarrhea and vomiting following a similar dose-related shape. The 30-day hold is what gives each step time to settle before the next one lands.

Why there is no fasting rule attached to any of these doses

Every strength on the chart carries the same administration instruction, and it is a short one: take Foundayo orally once daily, with or without food. Swallow tablets whole. Do not break, crush, or chew.

No empty stomach. No morning-only rule. No limit on water. No waiting period before eating, drinking, or taking other oral medicines.

This is not true of every GLP-1 pill, and the reason is chemical rather than commercial. Orforglipron is a small molecule, not a peptide, so it does not need the protected absorption window that oral semaglutide depends on. What Foundayo is and how the molecule works goes through that in full.

The one instruction that does apply at every strength is the handling rule. Swallow the tablet whole. Breaking, crushing or chewing it is off-label at any dose on the chart.

Five steps over five months is a lot to reconstruct from memory at an appointment. Takely records which strength you took and the date each change happened, next to a one-line note on how that week went — so a symptom cluster and an escalation step sit on the same timeline. Open Takely in your browser →

What the label says about a missed dose

The label's administration section covers the daily rhythm and the handling rule. It does not turn a missed dose into an instruction you can improvise around, and neither will we.

The general principle across this drug class is that a missed dose is skipped rather than doubled, and doses are not stacked to catch up. But the authoritative answer for your prescription is in your own Medication Guide and from your pharmacist, and a page on the internet is the wrong place to take it from. If you miss doses often enough that it matters, raise it at your next appointment — it is a common reason a prescriber holds a step rather than climbing.

How this ladder compares with the other GLP-1 pills

Foundayo's ladder is the longest of the oral GLP-1 options, and that is a structural difference rather than a detail.

	Strengths	Steps to maximum	Minimum per step
Foundayo (orforglipron)	0.8, 2.5, 5.5, 9, 14.5, 17.2 mg	Five	30 days
Rybelsus (oral semaglutide)	3, 7, 14 mg	Two	30 days
Wegovy tablets (oral semaglutide)	1.5, 4, 9, 25 mg	Three	30 days

Six strengths against three or four means smaller jumps between steps and a longer overall climb. Whether a gentler gradient suits any individual is a clinical question, not something a table settles — but it does change what the first half-year looks like in practice, and it changes how much of that period is spent at a dose that is still moving.

For the day-to-day differences that sit on top of the dosing, how the Foundayo ladder compares with Rybelsus covers indication, timing and the fasting rule side by side.

Does the dose change what you pay?

Usually not in the way people expect, and this is a common source of confusion.

For most US brand medicines the list price is set per package rather than per milligram, so a higher strength does not automatically cost more. What actually moves your out-of-pocket number is your plan's formulary tier, whether weight-management drugs are covered at all, and whether a manufacturer savings program applies to you.

Because those figures move, we keep the current picture in what Foundayo costs rather than repeating a number here that could be stale by the time you read it.

The date is the data

One practical note, and then the sources.

On a five-step ladder, the single most useful thing you can bring to an appointment is not a symptom list. It is a symptom list with dates on it, lined up against the dates your dose changed. A prescriber deciding whether to hold at 9 mg or move to 14.5 mg is weighing response against tolerability, and both of those are questions about timing.

"Nausea for about a week after each increase, then it settled" is a useful sentence. "I have been feeling sick" is not, and it is what most of us actually produce three months later. Takely exists to record which strength you are on and when it changed so the first sentence is available instead of the second.

Frequently asked questions

What is the maximum dose of Foundayo?

The maximum dosage is 17.2 mg once daily. It is the sixth and highest of the label's tablet strengths, reached after at least 30 days on 14.5 mg. The label frames the steps above 5.5 mg as optional increases based on treatment response and tolerability, not as a schedule everyone completes.

How often is the Foundayo dose increased?

No sooner than every 30 days. The label sets 30 days as the minimum time on each dose before moving to the next, at every step of the ladder. A prescriber can hold a dose longer than 30 days; the label sets a floor, not a fixed calendar.

Does everyone go up to 17.2 mg?

No. The first three steps are written as scheduled increases, but 9 mg, 14.5 mg and 17.2 mg are each described as increases that may be made based on treatment response and tolerability. Staying at a lower dose is a normal outcome, not a stalled one.

Can Foundayo tablets be split or crushed?

No. The label says to swallow tablets whole and not to break, crush, or chew them. That applies to every strength on the chart. If swallowing tablets is a problem for you, that is a conversation for your prescriber or pharmacist rather than something to solve with a pill cutter.

Does Foundayo need to be taken on an empty stomach?

No. The label says to take it once daily with or without food, and sets no restriction on water, time of day, or waiting before other oral medicines. That is a difference from oral semaglutide, which requires an empty stomach and a 30-minute wait.

Primary sources and further reading

Labels are revised. Everything on this page was checked against the sources above on 27 August 2026. Check the current label and ask your clinician or pharmacist about your own prescription.