Action plan: NorTrials will be further developed and will have an expanded area of responsibility.

One of the goals in the action plan is to further develop the collaboration between the healthcare sector and industry to contribute to increased investments from the health industry in research and development work in Norway, and to enhance Norway's and Europe's competitiveness.

One of the measures to achieve this is to further develop the NorTrials partnership. Signe Fretland, head of the NorTrials coordinating unit, is pleased with the trust placed in them.

- Although there have been strong signals that NorTrials will continue, it is nice to finally see what this entails in practice. We are grateful for the trust, and we will prepare for an expanded area of responsibility, continuing to work on developing and streamlining processes for clinical trials, says Fretland.

Specifically, this is how NorTrials is described in the action plan:

• NorTrials will continue as a main initiative to increase the number of industry-initiated trials in Norway.
• NorTrials and the NorTrials centres will showcase initiated and planned trials through digital solutions, meetings, and dissemination activities.
• NorTrials also has an important role alongside Innovation Norway in promoting Norway as a preferred country for clinical trials.
• The partnership and centres will be evaluated in 2026, and further developed based on this. It is emphasised that the specialist healthcare service's significant access to data, data warehouses, and artificial intelligence should be utilised in the work.
• The Nordic collaboration should be continued and strengthened.
• It will be evaluated whether the role of the health industry in NorTrials should be further developed by allowing individual companies to contribute with funding and other forms of support, and under what model.
• The NorTrials coordinating unit and the hospitals' contract management offices will help to gather experiences from environments with extensive collaboration with the health industry, and collaborate with NorCRIN to develop world-leading processes for industry-initiated trials.
• The NorTrials feasibility portal will be developed into a data-driven service to investigate the possibility of conducting a trial based on patient demographics and capacity at relevant study sites. As part of the source data, the portal can use tailored statistics from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and clinical activity at various institutions. The health industry and relevant registry environments will contribute by sharing relevant data as needed. In the long term, a framework will be developed to assess the maturity and delivery capability of study sites.
• NorTrials will continue to be funded through the national budget.