Dr.CardioMD said:

HbA1c reflects roughly three months of average glycaemia weighted toward the most recent weeks, which is why repeating it at six weeks tells you very…

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. Small molecule does not automatically mean cheap. Price is set by what the market will bear and by patent life, not by cost of goods, and I would not assume the savings reach patients.

Happy to go further on any of that.

One concrete data point for the thread. Because it is glucose-dependent, this class carries a low intrinsic hypoglycaemia risk on its own — the risk arrives when it is combined with insulin or a sulfonylurea, which usually need reducing.

mike_nyc said:

Small molecule does not automatically mean cheap.

Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. Take it one variable at a time. Almost every unanswerable question in these threads is unanswerable because three things changed in the same fortnight, and no amount of subsequent argument can untangle them after the fact.

Worth separating that from glycaemic control, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.

A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:

Why A1C lags the way it does, and what to look at in the meantime if you want to know sooner?

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Update — I was wrong in the opening post, specifically about the direction. Correcting it here rather than editing it away.