New SGLT-2 inhibitor measures on OpenPrescribing and OpenPrescribing Hospitals
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We’ve launched new measures for sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor use in primary and secondary care. They are already live - have a look at primary care and secondary care for your organisation now!
What are SGLT-2 inhibitors used for?
SGLT-2 inhibitors, including dapagliflozin, are commonly prescribed in type 2 diabetes, the treatment of chronic heart failure, and chronic kidney disease.
Why build this measure now?
Dapagliflozin lost its patent in August 2025. From September 2025 the NHS tariff price has started to fall, as it is now based on the generic price, rather than the branded product. NICE guidance on the treatment of diabetes states that if 2 drugs in the same class are appropriate, choose the option with the lowest acquisition cost. Dapagliflozin is likely to have cost-saving opportunities when compared with other SGLT-2s.
Primary care measure
On OpenPrescribing for primary care we show the proportion of SGLT-2 inhibitors (including combination products) not prescribed as generic dapagliflozin tablets. The below screenshot shows the measure at sub-ICB level
You can also see the national spending trend for dapagliflozin using our “Trends by chemical” tool.
Secondary care measure
In OpenPrescribing Hospitals, branded and generic products cannot be distinguished. For this reason, we show the proportion of SGLT-2 inhibitors not prescribed as dapagliflozin tablets.
Early days
Dapagliflozin only lost its patent in August 2025, so we would not expect to see a change in use yet (at the time of writing this blog). There is also around a two month lag in the data for both the English Prescribing Dataset (OpenPrescribing.net) and the Secondary Care Medicines Data (OpenPrescribing Hospitals) (August data is expected to be published for both datasets in October by the NHSBSA).
We hope this measure will support medicines optimisation teams to evaluate their practice over the coming months!
Get in touch
As a small team of clinicians, academics, and software engineers, we are able to build and launch dashboards quickly by working in an agile manner, openly describing our methods and code. If you have any suggestions for further developments of our measures on OpenPrescribing or OpenPrescribing Hospitals please get in touch at bennett@phc.ox.ac.uk