St Richard's opened a Novo Nordisk heart failure and obesity drug trial 18 days after selection, first in the UK. Who it is for and how it works.

St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester was the first hospital in the UK to open a major new drug trial for people living with both heart failure and obesity. Its cardiology team also put the first two UK patients into the study.

University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, which runs St Richard’s, announced it on Thursday 15 October.

How fast it moved

The trust gave these timings, counted from the day the hospital was chosen as a site:

  • 18 days to open the study, the first UK site to do so
  • 35 days to consent the first participant
  • the first two participants randomised in the UK

The team had picked out likely patients from its cardiology database before recruitment opened, so three could be approached straight away. The trust says it is now ahead of its recruitment target.

The consultant cardiologist leading the study at the hospital is Dr Wong, the principal investigator. Professor Martin Llewelyn, the trust’s director of research and innovation, said: “Research gives patients access to tomorrow’s treatments today.”

What the trial is testing

The trust’s announcement does not name the medicine or the company. The public trial register does. The study is HF-POLARIS, registered as NCT07567001, and its sponsor is Novo Nordisk.
Medicine NNC0487-0111, an investigational drug doctors cannot yet prescribe
How it is given an injection once a week, with the dose raised step by step
Compared with a placebo; which one a patient gets is decided by chance
Who can take part adults with heart failure (NYHA class II to IV) and a BMI of 30 or more, among other criteria
What it measures time to cardiovascular death, and time to a heart failure hospital stay or urgent visit
Length each patient is followed for up to 165 weeks
Scale about 5,610 people at 838 sites in 27 countries
In the UK 37 hospitals listed, 25 of them recruiting

The register says the study started on 11 May 2026. The main results are due in July 2029.

It is aimed at two types of heart failure: with preserved ejection fraction, and with mildly reduced ejection fraction. In plain terms, the heart still pumps out a normal or near-normal share of its blood but the person has heart failure symptoms. The trust says heart failure affects around one million people in the UK, and that obesity is a major risk factor for it.

What it means for you

  • You cannot simply sign up. The St Richard’s team found its first patients in its own cardiology records. If you have heart failure and think you might qualify, ask your cardiologist or GP about research studies.
  • It is a trial, not a treatment. Some patients receive a placebo instead of the drug, and the drug has no licence yet.
  • The full eligibility list is on the trial register. It rules out, for example, anyone with type 1 diabetes or a heart attack or stroke in the 30 days before screening.

The trial runs through the NIHR Commercial Research Delivery Centre Sussex, which the trust hosts with Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. The centre has just marked its first anniversary.

St Richard’s has other changes on the way: about 850 solar panels were approved for its roofs in August.