Key Features
UK NHS organisations can apply for a share of up to £85 million for Obesity Pathway Innovations. Funding for this competition is from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (£50 million) and Eli Lilly and Company Limited (£35 million).
Programme: Innovate Uk
Award: Share of up to £85 million
Opens: 8th Sep 2025
Closes: 19th Nov 2025
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in partnership with Lilly to invest a total of up to £85 million in innovation projects.
DSIT is providing up to £50 million and Lilly is providing up to £35 million. This includes a minimum of £10 million to be ring fenced for devolved administration health services.
Innovate UK reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions under exceptional circumstances, for example, in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations, or broader government funding decisions.
Lilly has worked in partnership with DSIT and Innovate UK in the design of the competition questions and guide for independent assessors (Assessor Guidance). Through an arrangement with IUK, NHS England and the Devolved Nations have had input into and approved the Competition Brief. Lilly is not involved in the process between the launch of the competition and the assessment, ranking and interview process. Lilly will be granted access to applications shortlisted for interview under appropriate safeguards to screen for compliance with the project principles and the Lilly grant eligibility criteria for funding. This is in order to meet their obligations under the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) Code of Practice before authorising the award of grant funding.
Note: Applicants should be aware that Lilly eligibility criteria have been supplied for transparency in accordance with the ABPI Code of Practice. This competition is a jointly funded initiative, and we expect all projects to align with the Lilly eligibility criteria and project principles which have been built into the requirements of this competition.
DSIT reserves the right to fund projects that do not pass Lilly’s screening against the project principles and eligibility criteria. Ensure you review these in full within the Assessor Guidance.
As is standard practise, Lilly UK has a commitment under the ABPI Code of Practice to openness and transparency with regard to any grant funding. Applicants should be aware that Lilly UK has an obligation to disclose information regarding the grant, including the recipient organisation’s name, and the amount of the grant for Transfer of Value purposes.
The aim of this competition is for projects to have developed innovative community and primary care based weight management pathways.
The pathways developed will have plausible plans to recruit significant numbers of patients in each year of the project to provide holistic person centred care that is clinically appropriate, effective and resource efficient.
Pathways across the UK must offer a range of support for patients, including nationally and locally available lifestyle and weight management interventions, and for those meeting clinical eligibility criteria, access to obesity medications.
The pathways are expected to provide patients with access to essential behaviour change support, focusing on nutrition and physical activity, and where appropriate, psychological support to ensure overall wellbeing.
The programme will include regular reporting to an evaluator of funded projects. It is anticipated that the evaluation will inform the development of guidelines by NICE and Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN).
All pathways are expected to meet NICE NG246 and Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) recommendations.
For this combined access and management service and care pathway services strand of the competition your project must merge both the access and management service and care pathway services. It must meet innovation requirements expected of both.
Your access and management services must provide comprehensive patient-centred access, to include multiple referral inputs, triage, onward referrals, care pathway management, escalation and reporting. Your access and management service may be digital, physical or operate with a hybrid delivery mode, but must ensure access according to clinical need and address health inequalities.
Your care pathway services must provide new models of care for the patient once they have been referred for an intervention. Your service must assess patient eligibility, checking for contra-indications and facilitating access to appropriate services, offering choice where available. Your service must be based around new delivery pathways that demonstrate innovation, for example, but not limited to:
Novel models of care may be able to utilise local or nationally available weight management support services when meeting eligibility criteria.
Your service must have a mechanism to access, read and update the primary healthcare record of the patient; there should be a mechanism in place to ensure all interventions are recorded on the patient’s primary healthcare record.
The whole pathway will be assessed so applicants must demonstrate end-to-end proposals of a consistently high quality.
Where you propose incorporating pre-existing care services into a new pathway it will be necessary to demonstrate additionality and innovation for that service element to be an eligible cost.
You can contact support@iuk.ukri.org by email for advice on eligibility.
Your proposal must:
Your proposal must also have a proposed design of weight management pathways that:
You must outline your plans to implement, scale and sustain your project.
Beyond the end of the grant funded period of the programme you will be entirely responsible for ensuring there are plans to wind-down, continue or expand the project. Your plan for how to transition to routinely commissioned services must be outlined in your application, including considerations of whether to have a cut-off date for enrolment of new patients onto OPIP pathways.
Your plans to sustain projects should include potential partnerships and funding strategies.
You will need to include an Implementation Route Map, detailing workstreams and key milestones of proposition delivery, including a target date for your first patients on the live pathways and ambitions for the maximum number of patients supported, and by when.
Note: successful innovation projects will be expected to provide consistent and timely data or reporting to programme evaluators during the project, and for up to five years after the end of the programme to help inform longer term impact.
Data shared with Lilly will be limited to quarterly financial reports in line with grant report requirements and will not include any patient related data or information to be used for evaluation of projects.
You must take into consideration all codes, regulatory and legal requirements. Your innovative pathways must demonstrate how you meet essential clinical governance standards as well as information governance standards.
Your project will require any necessary clinical accreditation or validation before pathways are activated, such as that which may be required by:
Portfolio approach
Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across:
Innovate UK call this a portfolio approach.
This award has been designed to be provided on a no subsidy basis, as defined in the Subsidy Control Act 2022.
This means to be eligible, the award will not give an economic advantage to one or more organisations, and you must not be acting economically as an organisation within the meaning of the act.
In limited circumstances, EU State aid rules may apply under the Windsor Framework and a ‘No Aid’ award may be given in accordance with the R&D&I Framework.
Your project
Lilly will be screening projects according to the grant eligibility criteria and project principles as set out in the Assessor Guidance. Projects that do not meet the grant eligibility criteria and project principles will not be funded by Lilly.
Your project must:
Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. Projects officially start when your Grant Offer Letter has been issued and approved by Innovate UK, however projects that are ready will be granted permission to start, and incur costs at risk, from 1 February 2026 in advance of the Grant Offer Letter being approved. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date.
You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs.
In addition to the standard guidance on eligible costs set out above, guidance is provided to applicants for this competition in the Finances section.
If your project’s total costs or duration falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@iuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. We will decide whether to approve your request.
If you have not requested approval or your application has not been approved by us, you will be made ineligible. Your application will then not be sent for assessment.
Lead organisation
To lead a project your organisation:
Eligible NHS organisations must have a strategic responsibility for commissioning care, for example:
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
You can contact support@iuk.ukri.org by email for guidance on your eligibility as an organisation.
Subcontractors
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
All subcontractor costs must represent fair market value and be appropriate to the total eligible project costs.
Number of applications
An eligible public sector organisation can only lead on up to two applications across all strands of the competition.
Sanctions
This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions. For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups.
Use of animals in research and innovation
Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance.
Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.
You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
Lilly will be screening projects according to the grant eligibility criteria and project principles as set out in the Assessor Guidance. Projects that do not meet the grant eligibility criteria and project principles will not be funded by Lilly.
Innovate UK are not funding projects that:
Innovate UK reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions under exceptional circumstances, for example, in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations, or broader government funding decisions.
Throughout this competition brief any mention of ‘research’ is referring to ‘service improvement and evaluation activities’ undertaken by the programme and aligned to the Frascati Definition of Research used in the reporting of government funding. For clarity, this programme does not involve clinical research as defined by the Health Research Authority.
Up to £35 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects across this strand of the competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
The total funding available for this competition can change. The funders have the right to:
Your total eligible project costs will be 100% funded. Total eligible project costs detailed within your application must not exceed the maximum project size. If your total eligible project costs do exceed the maximum then your application will be made ineligible.
You can make reference to any additional voluntary contribution in your application answers. It must not be detailed in the finance section.
If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.
Innovate UK may revoke our decision to provide funding without notice if government commitment for this initiative is withdrawn.
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