Working with
patient groups

Working with patient groups

At AstraZeneca UK, we Put Patients First. It is one of our core values and at the heart of everything we do. Our aim is to establish a truly collaborative and transparent relationship with patients and patient groups across our areas of scientific expertise.

It is a partnership built on collaboration, transparency and truly understanding unmet needs. It means that insights are rooted in evidence, not assumptions.

Listening to our patients ensures that crucial real-world insights, barriers to care and unmet needs are reflected in how we develop and deliver our medicines.

Through long‑term partnerships, we work with patient organisations to tackle the systemic barriers that shape people’s experiences – from supporting earlier, more accurate diagnosis to helping patients navigate complex health systems and ensuring access to medicines.

We are committed to empowering patient communities by ensuring they have the knowledge and support needed throughout their treatment journey.

Our partnership with the advocacy community is pivotal to achieving better patient access, experiences ​and outcomes.

Areas of focus

Across our work, we are focused on three strategic pillars which guide our strategy, partnerships and grants. These prioritised areas are aligned to our areas of scientific expertise, which include:

  • Cardiovascular, renal and metabolic disease, specifically chronic kidney disease, hypertension, heart failure, hyperkalaemia, and transthyretin amyloidosis.
  • Respiratory, immunology, vaccines and immune therapies, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and influenza.
  • Our focus in oncology is on cancers of the bladder, blood, breast, liver, lung, ovaries, prostate, and stomach.
Access to innovation Pathways to care Patient empowerment
To help patients get the most from our medicines, we share knowledge on the latest advancements in healthcare with a number of patient organisations and health charities. We work with patient organisations to address some of the most significant barriers to patients receiving optimal care. We partner with organisations to support patients with the information and services they need to participate in shared decision‑making.

Grants

Grants are a reactive provision of monetary support by AstraZeneca to an organisation, to help deliver a specific, defined outcome. Grants may be awarded to Healthcare Organisations, Patient Organisations or Charities involved in patient support. Grants could be for the purposes of disease awareness/education, or to empower patients in managing their care alongside their healthcare provider(s). For more information about AstraZeneca's Grants process, and other partnerships, please visit our Partnerships page.

The Grants process does not accept requests for Externally Sponsored Research or Product Donation requests; these are reviewed through a separate process.

Once you submit your grant application, it will be reviewed by the relevant team and the Grants Committee.

Please allow up to 12 weeks for your application to be reviewed. Apply in good time before your proposed project or activity start date. We will contact you by email with the outcome and may request additional information throughout the process as we complete due diligence.
Grants are provided by AstraZeneca without intent or agreement for AstraZeneca to receive a benefit in exchange. Display of the AstraZeneca logo or name may be permitted as acknowledgement for transparency where appropriate and is not considered a benefit.

 

AstraZeneca is launching a grant round to help patient advocacy organisations deliver services that support patients to prepare for and continue with cancer care, in response to inequities in access to prehabilitation and rehabilitation services, and in recognition of the vital role patient organisations play in supporting their communities to access these services.

Click here for further details of the application process.
Click here to read the frequently asked questions.

Deadline for applications is 1 July 2026.

What to include in your grant application

To help the AstraZeneca UK Grants Committee review your application, please include the following information clearly in your Letter of Request, on your organisation’s headed paper. If key details are missing or unclear, your application may be delayed or rejected.

  • Description of the grant
  • The unmet need that the project will address
  • Objective of the grant
  • How the grant will support clear advancement in UK clinical practice and/or impact on reducing health inequalities
  • Type of activity
  • Timeframe (including start and end dates and key milestones [if applicable])
  • Total project cost and the amount requested from AstraZeneca
    • If other companies are providing funding, please state who else has been approached and how much has been committed
  • Confirmation that the amount requested is within 30% of your annual projected income (including this grant and any other grants, sponsorships or consultancy fees provided to the organisation by AstraZeneca in this calendar year)
  • How your organisation will ensure long-term financial sustainability of the programme

To provide sufficient detail on how the funding will be used, please complete the budget template below. An example budget is available on a separate tab for illustration.

Please include as much information as you can for each line item in the Details/Comments column.

If personnel from your organisation will deliver the project and you are requesting salary funding, include each staff member’s estimated number of hours and hourly rate.

Download budget template here.

Sponsorships

AstraZeneca also provides funding via Sponsorships, this includes a contribution, financial or otherwise, in whole or in part, provided by or on behalf of AstraZeneca UK towards an activity that is performed, organised and/or created by a healthcare organisation, patient advocacy group or other organisation, which confers some appropriate benefits in return for AstraZeneca UK.

Examples of this can include event sponsorship (where AstraZeneca receive exhibition space or delegate passes), sponsorship of campaigns (where content is developed for sponsors to use) or a Corporate Membership (where AstraZeneca could become a corporate member of a non-political association or society).

If you have a request for sponsorship, please reach out to your AstraZeneca point of contact who will review the application. If you do not already have a point of contact, please reach out using the details on the Contact Us page.

Being able to partner with AstraZeneca has allowed Kidney Care UK to raise significant awareness about chronic kidney disease (CKD) and drive engagement with different audiences who would otherwise struggle to engage with their medical risk factors around CKD.

Kidney Care UK logo

Laurie Cuthbert

Director of Fundraising, Marketing & Communications, Kidney Care UK

CLL Support is one of the UK’s largest patient-led charities. We deliberately focus our pharmaceutical collaborations on those providing treatments or research in CLL and we are delighted to have had many fruitful collaborations with AstraZeneca. These have ranged from contributing to research, providing the patient perspective and educating the CLL community through to creating podcasts, videos and advising on patient advisory boards. We see the collaboration as a win-win for all.

CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukamia) Support logo

Peter Allen

CLL Support Chair of Trustees



Disclosures

Charitable donations and sponsorship to organisations that drive healthcare innovations and benefit the NHS and its patients are also key features of our approach to patient support. AstraZeneca signs a transparency agreement with each patient group, agreeing on the principles of their interactions.

View the contributions we have made to patient organisations:

GB-76376 | June 2026