Pegvisomant: uses, dosing, side effects & brands
Pegvisomant is a medicine sold in the U.S. under one brand, for acromegaly. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.
Key facts
- Treats
- Acromegaly
- Available as
- Kit
- Sold as
- Somavert
- Prescription?
- Prescription only
- Generic available?
- Not in our catalog
How pegvisomant is dosed
From the FDA label for Somavert (application BLA021106). Other pegvisomant products — different forms, different strengths — are dosed differently. Follow the label for the one you were prescribed.
Administer a 40 mg loading dose subcutaneously under physician supervision. ( 2.1 ) • After proper injection instruction, on day after loading dose, patients or caregivers begin daily subcutaneous injections of 10 mg. ( 2.1 ) • Adjust dosage in 5 mg increments or decrements until serum IGF-1 concentrations are maintained within age-adjusted normal range. Do not adjust dosage based on growth hormone (GH) levels or signs or symptoms of acromegaly. ( 2.1 ) • Dosage range is 10 mg to 30 mg once daily. ( 2.1 ) • Perform liver tests prior to first dosage and if greater than 3 times upper limit of normal should work-up prior to SOMAVERT administration. ( 2.2 ) • Follow reconstitution and injection procedures. ( 2.3 , 2.4 ) 2.1 Dosage Information The recommended loading dose of SOMAVERT is 40 mg given subcutaneously, under healthcare provider supervision. Provide proper training in subcutaneous injection technique to patients or their caregivers so they can receive once daily subcutaneous injections. On the next day following the loading dose, instruct patients or their caregivers to begin daily subcutaneous injections of 10 mg of SOMAVERT. Titrate the dosage to normalize serum IGF-1 concentrations (serum IGF-1 concentrations should be measured every four to six weeks). The dosage should not be based on growth hormone (GH) concentrations or signs and symptoms of acromegaly. It is…
Pegvisomant side effects
Clinically significant adverse reactions that appear in other section of the labeling include: • Hypoglycemia Associated with GH Lowering in Patients with Diabetes Mellitus [see Warnings and Precautions (5.1) ] • Liver Toxicity [see Warnings and Precautions (5.2) ] • Cross-Reactivity with GH Assays [see Warnings and Precautions (5.3) ] • Lipohypertrophy [see Warnings and Precautions (5.4) ] • Systemic Hypersensitivity [see Warnings and Precautions (5.5) ] Elevations of serum concentrations of ALT and AST greater than ten times the ULN were reported in two patients (0.8%) exposed to SOMAVERT in pre-approval clinical studies. One patient was rechallenged with SOMAVERT, and the recurrence of elevated transaminase levels suggested a probable causal relationship between administration of the drug and the elevation in liver enzymes. A liver biopsy performed on the second patient was consistent with chronic hepatitis of unknown etiology. In both patients, the transaminase elevations normalized after discontinuation of the drug. Elevations in ALT and AST levels were not associated with increased levels of TBIL and ALP, with the exception of two patients with minimal associated increases in ALP levels (i.e., less than 3 times ULN). The transaminase elevations did not appear to be related to the dose of SOMAVERT administered, generally occurred within 4 to 12 weeks of initiation of…
Who shouldn’t take pegvisomant
None. None. ( 4 )
Pegvisomant drug interactions
Insulin and/or Oral hypoglycemic Agents: Patients with acromegaly and with diabetes mellitus may require careful monitoring and dose reductions of insulin and/or oral hypoglycemic agents. ( 5.2 , 7.1 ) • Opioids: Patients on opioids may need higher SOMAVERT doses to achieve appropriate IGF-1 suppression. ( 7.2 ) 7.1 Insulin and/or Oral Hypoglycemic Agents After initiation of SOMAVERT, patients with acromegaly and diabetes mellitus treated with insulin and/or oral hypoglycemic agents may require dose reductions of insulin and/or oral hypoglycemic agents [see Warnings and Precautions (5.1) ] . 7.2 Opioids In clinical studies, patients taking opioids often needed higher SOMAVERT doses to normalize IGF-1 concentrations compared with patients not receiving opioids. The mechanism of this interaction is not known.
Every pegvisomant product we track (1)
Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.
Only one: Somavert.
Pegvisomant and breastfeeding
From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.
Full LactMed record for pegvisomant: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider insteadLimited data indicate that pegvisomant is poorly excreted into breastmilk. Because pegvisomant is not orally absorbed, it is unlikely to adversely affect the breastfed infant. Polyethylene glycol is not excreted into breastmilk.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, record revised March 15, 2025. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.
What people report to the FDA about pegvisomant
The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 285 reports naming pegvisomant, and the FDA flagged 90% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:
- blood pressure increased46 reports
- injection site pain46 reports
- insulin-like growth factor increased42 reports
- blood growth hormone increased41 reports
- fall34 reports
- gait disturbance32 reports
- heart rate decreased31 reports
- abdominal pain29 reports
Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean pegvisomant caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.
Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 25, 2026.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
What is pegvisomant?
Somavert (Pegvisomant) is a medication used to treat Acromegaly.
Can you take pegvisomant with other medicines?
It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run pegvisomant against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.
What forms does pegvisomant come in?
Across the brands we track, pegvisomant is currently marketed as kit, per the FDA's National Drug Code Directory. Each form is dosed differently — follow the label for the exact product you were prescribed.
Is there a generic pegvisomant?
We do not currently list a generic-labelled pegvisomant product. That does not always mean none exists — it means none appears under a generic name in the FDA data we track. Ask your pharmacist.
Cite this page
- APA
- pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Pegvisomant: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/pegvisomant
- MLA
- “Pegvisomant: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/pegvisomant.
We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.
Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.
Read the full FDA label for pegvisomant on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.