Commercial partnerships

Introducing inclisiran – a partnership between the NHS and industry to tackle cardiovascular disease.

The NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) identified cardiovascular disease (CVD) as the single biggest area where the health service can save lives over the next ten years.

The LTP also advocates a new service delivery model in which people are predominantly cared for by provider collaborations centered around Primary Care Networks (PCNs), to help reduce the number of outpatient appointments, reduce patient trips to hospital and save the NHS over £1 billion a year’.

With these ambitions in mind:

  • Inclisiran, a new drug to lower cholesterol, was made accessible to patients through the first NHS ‘population health agreement’. It provides a further tool for the treatment of CVD.
  • The world-leading deal for the rollout of Inclisiran aims to save lives and enable hundreds of thousands of people to benefit from the treatment, while also being fair to taxpayers.
  • The NHS is rolling out the injection at unprecedented scale because the health service and manufacturer have concluded a deal that enables the NHS to utilise Inclisiran at an affordable and cost-effective price.
  • The NHS is using this commercial deal for Inclisiran as an opportunity to find and treat a large population affected by a leading health challenge, helping to secure maximum value from the NHS budget for new medicines.

The Accelerated Access Collaborative are responsible for the implementation of the inclisiran partnership. Now that inclisiran is available to NHS patients in England following NICE Guidance, we are working hard with the Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) as our delivery partner to ensure that the new treatment fits seamlessly within the lipids care pathway.

The AHSNs specialise in the adoption and spread of healthcare innovation and have a national lipid management and familial hypercholesterolaemia programme. They use their embedded relationships with local health and care systems to help ensure successful roll out. Each AHSN will engage with integrated care systems (ICSs) and PCNs to lead local decision-making, underpinned by local population data, to enable a targeted Population Health Management approach. This will harness information on prevalence of CVD alongside other risk factors to help ensure all patients can have an informed discussion with their local clinician about what is the right care package for them.

If you would like more information on the inclisiran programme and the broader programme of work being undertaken within the lipid management pathway, please visit the AHSN Network website. For more general queries please contact england.lipidsphm@nhs.net.

For information on the funding and supply arrangements for inclisiran as an option in the lipid management pathway please read this summary information on the funding and supply of inclisiran.

You can also find a letter and briefing note which details the role of inclisiran in lipid management here.

In addition, there is a comprehensive cholesterol awareness and education campaign targeted at health care professionals involved in lipids management which can be accessed on the Heart UK website.