Medical advances in the last two decades—including novel therapeutics, the use of artificial intelligence to support diagnosis, and innovative models of care such as telemedicine—have helped countries make tremendous progress in understanding, preventing and treating cardiovascular disease (CVD). Yet, CVDs remain the world’s biggest killer, with more than 20 million people dying each year.
One area that could be key to spurring future progress against CVDs is therapeutics, particularly single pill combination therapies (SPCs). By combining more than one active pharmaceutical ingredient into one pill that can target multiple CVD risk factors (e.g. raised blood pressure or cholesterol levels), SPCs can significantly improve health outcomes through reducing the pill burden on patients and therefore increasing adherence to treatment plans.
The science to develop, manufacture and advance SPCs exists. Indeed, they have been successfully used in the treatment of certain CVDs, and the inclusion of cardiovascular SPCs in the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines in 2023 should spur countries to increase their availability and affordability. However, SPCs are still a woefully underutilized tool in combatting CVDs globally, despite the growing evidence base for their promise in primary and secondary prevention of CVDs.
This WHF Roadmap outlines the scientific and clinical evidence to support the scale up of SPCs globally, before exploring some of the barriers that exist to their advancement. Among the major challenges are – limited manufacturing; the high cost of SPCs to both governments and patients; inconsistent international and national guidelines; and prescriber caution.
To help overcome these challenges, the Roadmap identifies actionable solutions that governments, regulatory bodies, health professionals, civil society and others can take to urgently improve the availability, affordability and accessibility or SPCs. These include investment in local manufacturing capacity, inclusion of SPCs in national insurance coverage and education and awareness raising efforts for prescribers.
With concerted and coordinated action to address the main barriers to scaling up cardiovascular SPCs, the world has the potential to significantly improve the lives of millions of people either at-risk for or living with cardiovascular disease.
Download the SPC Roadmap and Summary document
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This Roadmap is part of the WHF’s Roadmap series, developed to help guide healthcare professionals, health authorities and policymakers towards reducing the burden of CVD and saving lives. WHF Roadmaps identify obstacles to implementation of health solutions, and propose tools, strategies, and recommendations that can be adapted to diverse contexts. They are developed with the expertise of peers and co-chairs of the process. WHF Roadmaps empower others to implement them, working with diverse stakeholders such as:
- Governments and policy makers
- NGOs, health activists and advocates
- Healthcare professionals
- Corporate entities
- Academic and research institutions
- Patients and patient groups
