Notice

Obesity Mission

Published 4 April 2024

What we do

The Obesity Mission was identified as one of the key healthcare missions in the 2021 Life Sciences Vision, with a focus on how life sciences interventions could be used to treat the major causes of cardiovascular disease, specifically obesity.

Cardiovascular diseases are responsible for 1 in 4 deaths in the UK, but many of the risk factors are preventable and yet increasingly prevalent. Obesity is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular disease, as both an independent risk factor and primary driver of other related conditions, resulting in significant burdens to the NHS with an estimated cost of up to £6.5 billion a year.

In November 2022, £20 million of government funding was announced to deliver our ambition of preventing cardiovascular disease in the form of the Life Sciences Obesity Mission, recognising the role of obesity as a leading driver of many common risk factors that cause cardiovascular and related diseases.  

The Mission will explore how new and potentially transformative innovations for the treatment of obesity can be accelerated and combined to improve long-term health outcomes for people living with obesity and associated conditions, including cardiovascular disease, and reduce the significant burden of obesity on the NHS, whilst ensuring that the UK is a world-class location to trial, pilot and rollout innovation.

We are also funding the research evaluation. As a first step, we launched a competition, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, to develop a Phase 2 pre-licence platform to evaluate pharmaceutical and digital interventions for obesity, with delivery partners due to be selected imminently. We are also funding the research evaluation competition for the recently announced obesity pilots, delivered by NHS England, that will seek to generate high quality evidence to support testing of service delivery models outside of hospital settings that can increase access to the newest and most effective obesity drugs for patients living with obesity.

Who we are

The Obesity Mission is Chaired by Professor Naveed Sattar.

I am delighted to chair the Obesity Mission as obesity is perhaps the major cause of multiple long-term conditions in the UK.  I want to help promote the UK as an excellent place to do obesity research with its connectivity, high quality health records and academic talent. There are few places better for companies than the UK to best determine the benefits of new weight loss methods – be they technological or pharmaceutical – for people and society.

Professor Naveed Sattar, October 2023.

Naveed Sattar Obesity Mission Chair.

Naveed Sattar is a medical researcher and Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the School of Cardiovascular & Metabolic Health at the University of Glasgow and is clinically active in cardiometabolic disease treatment and prevention as an Honorary Consultant at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

With over 25 years of academic experience and a remarkable track record of collaboration across a number of medical fields, Naveed is recognised as a world leading expert on obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Naveed enjoys challenging conventional wisdom, and his research on the pathogenesis, assessment and treatment of cardiometabolic conditions has helped shape clinical practice across the UK and Europe, leading to new insights in several areas.  He has also contributed to eight clinical guidelines for the treatment of cardiometabolic conditions, including obesity.

With over 1300 published papers authored Naveed has been in the top 1% of cited clinical academics in the world since 2014, receiving several national and international prizes for his research.  He has also extensively contributed to clinically significant trials in the field – both lifestyle interventions and pharmaceutical trials – as well as mechanistic insights behind the impact of weight loss in several conditions.

Documents

• 23/92 EME Application Development Award - Industry engagement for a Phase 2 pre-licence platform to evaluate pharmaceutical and digital interventions for obesity.

• Evaluation of a pilot for use of obesity medications outside of hospital settings commissioning brief.

• Government to use Vaccine Taskforce model to tackle health challenges.

• New obesity treatments and technology to save the NHS billions.

Contact details

You can contact the Obesity Mission by email:healthcaremissions@officeforlifesciences.gov.uk