Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, provides consistent protection against kidney disease progression and death in adults with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, regardless of whether they also have established heart disease, heart failure, or elevated cardiovascular risk without known disease, according to a major subgroup analysis of the FLOW trial published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on June 2, 2026, and highlighted in ACC July 2026 coverage.
The analysis of 3,533 patients found that semaglutide reduced the composite of major kidney outcomes and all-cause death consistently across three cardiovascular subgroups: patients with established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, patients with heart failure, and patients at high cardiovascular risk without known cardiovascular disease. The consistency of the benefit across these groups is clinically significant because it means physicians do not need to restrict semaglutide's kidney-protective use to patients who also have documented heart disease.
