New York, New York, U.S., September 24, 2026
Boehringer Ingelheim and the WHO Foundation have launched a three-year global collaboration focused on strengthening obesity and metabolic health care, particularly in resource-limited settings. Announced on September 24, 2026, the collaboration is supported by a USD 5 million contribution from Boehringer Ingelheim over three years and aims to strengthen health-system preparedness to monitor and provide care for obesity and related metabolic conditions. The initiative will also support approaches that connect health and non-health sectors and encourage meaningful engagement with people living with noncommunicable diseases in policy discussions. The partnership reflects growing efforts to address obesity as a complex chronic condition associated with interconnected cardiovascular, kidney, liver and metabolic diseases, rather than treating obesity and its related conditions independently. The WHO Foundation said the collaboration will help countries translate evidence and global guidance into integrated services while generating practical models that could support broader health-system improvements.
$5 Million Collaboration Targets Metabolic Health
Under the new agreement, Boehringer Ingelheim will contribute USD 5 million to the WHO Foundation over three years. The funding is intended to support work that strengthens health-system readiness for obesity and related metabolic health conditions. This includes improving the capacity of health systems to monitor these conditions and provide coordinated care, particularly in settings where healthcare resources and infrastructure can be constrained. The collaboration also seeks to encourage cooperation across health and non-health sectors and incorporate the perspectives of people living with noncommunicable diseases into policy discussions. By supporting these activities, the initiative aims to contribute to more integrated and patient-centered approaches to chronic disease care.
Focus on Integrated Obesity and Chronic Disease Care
The collaboration recognizes the connections between obesity and cardiovascular, kidney, liver and other metabolic diseases. According to the WHO Foundation, more than 2.5 billion adults and more than 390 million children and adolescents worldwide were overweight in 2022, while approximately one in eight people globally were living with obesity. The prevalence of obesity among adults has more than doubled since 1990. These figures illustrate the scale of the health challenge and the need for health systems to develop coordinated approaches to prevention, monitoring and long-term care. The new collaboration will focus on strengthening the foundations required to provide integrated services rather than addressing obesity and related conditions through disconnected care pathways.
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Supporting WHO’s Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity
As part of the collaboration, the WHO Foundation will support the World Health Organization’s Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity (2022–2030). The plan, adopted by WHO Member States in 2022, is intended to help countries move from commitments toward implementation through evidence-based interventions, country ownership and systemic change. The collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim is designed to support efforts to translate global evidence and guidance into practical health-system approaches. The WHO Foundation also said the initiative aims to generate knowledge and models that can extend beyond the initial participating countries, potentially contributing to longer-term improvements in chronic disease care and health-system resilience.
The new partnership builds on an existing relationship between Boehringer Ingelheim and the WHO Foundation, which previously included collaboration focused on strengthening equitable healthcare access and suicide-prevention efforts in the Americas. The latest initiative expands the relationship into obesity and metabolic health, with an emphasis on integrated care and health-system preparedness. Rather than focusing on a single medicine or clinical trial, the collaboration centers on strengthening systems capable of providing coordinated, long-term care for obesity and associated metabolic diseases. For the biopharmaceutical sector, the initiative illustrates how industry and global-health organizations can collaborate on programs aimed at improving healthcare infrastructure, translating evidence into practice and addressing chronic diseases in settings where healthcare capacity varies significantly.
Source: Boehringer Ingelheim press release
