Uk to Spend £40 Million on Obesity Medication Pilot

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Posted on Jun 8, 2023

Yesterday, the UK Government announced a plan to spend £40 million on a two-year pilot to explore ways to make obesity drugs accessible to patients living with obesity outside of hospital settings.

As readers may know, anti-obesity medications including semaglutide have already been approved for prescription in hospital-based obesity clinics in the UK (albeit its use is limited to just two years, which makes little sense for a chronic disease like obesity).

As noted in the announcement, however, this limitation to use in hospital-based clinics will only reach about 35,000 people living with obesity, a tiny fraction of the over 12 million people with BMIs >30 kg/m² in the UK. 

According to the release, “Obesity costs the NHS around £6.5 billion a year and is the second biggest cause of cancer. There were more than 1 million admissions to NHS hospitals in 2019/2020 where obesity was a factor.”

The pilot will explore how approved anti-obesity drugs can be made safely available to more people by expanding specialist weight management services outside of hospital settings. This includes looking at how GPs could safely prescribe these drugs and how the NHS can provide support in the community or digitally.

The hope is that wider use of these medications can help cut waiting lists by reducing the number of people who suffer from weight-related illnesses, who tend to need more support from the NHS and could end up needing operations linked to their weight – such as gallstone removal or hip and knee replacements.

These activities to improve access to anti-obesity medications, of course, also includes negotiating a secure long-term supply of the products at prices that represent value for money taxpayers.

Obviously, this is a step in the right direction, as I have previously noted that to have a discernible impact on population health, anti-obesity medications will ultimately have to be made available and properly managed by GPs, not unlike their management of hypertension, diabetes or other common chronic diseases.

It will be interesting to see how this pilot develops and if other countries in Europe and elsewhere will follow suit. 

DrSharma
Berlin, D

Disclaimer: I have received honoraria as an independent medical, research and/or educational consultant from various companies including Aidhere, Allurion, Boehringer Ingelheim, Currax, Eli-Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Medscape, MDBriefcase, Novo Nordisk, Oviva and Xenobiosciences.