Novartis announced yesterday that the UK will become the global centre a new clinical trial investigating inclisiran in improving cardiovascular outcomes.
The announcement was made on the same day that the company officially opened its new headquarters in White City, London. In attendance was Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who formally opened the new Novartis HQ.
The Swiss pharma is currently planning a primary prevention study with cholesterol-lowering drug inclisiran in the UK, building on the methods used to recruit patients into the UK Biobank.
The UK Biobank is a national and international health resource which recruited 500,000 people between the ages of 40-69 years in 2006-2010 from across the country.
They underwent measures, provided blood, urine and saliva sample for future analysis, detailed information about themselves and agreed to have their health followed. Its aim is to build a resource which will aid researchers in the discovery of the causes of particular diseases.
Novartis also plans to conduct ORION-4, the ongoing study for patients who have already had a heart attack or stroke, with this study making the UK the global trial centre. The company will work in partnership with the Nuffield Department of Population Health at Oxford University, the NHS and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) as part of this programme.
Pictured left to right: Vas Narasimhan (chief executive officer, Novartis), Mari Scheiffele (general manager UK & Ireland, Novartis Oncology), Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Haseeb Ahmad (managing director, UK, Ireland and Nordics, Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Country President, Novartis UK).
“As a company working to improve and extend human life, we’re optimistic about today’s announcement and what this could mean in the ongoing battle against cardiovascular disease—the world’s leading cause of death and disability. We see the UK, with its deep commitment to life sciences, as an attractive place to reimagine medicine,” said Vas Narasimhan, chief executive officer at Novartis.
In January, Novartis announced that it has teamed up with the NHS which will see patients in England receive accelerated access to inclisiran upon regulatory approval.
The proposed population-level agreement would provide access to inclisiran treatment for secondary prevention ASCVD patients as part of a distribution programme for patients not reaching their LDL-C target on statins alone.
Novartis acquired inclisiran from The Medicines Company, after a completing a $9.7bn takeover of the company.
It is a small, interfering RNA (siRNA) drug which works by blocking the synthesis of PCSK9 in the liver, rather than targeting the protein itself. It works to lower LDL cholesterol drugs, and is not currently approved in any country.