On 7-8 June 2022 the Nordic Trial Alliance, BusinessFinland and Åbo Akademi University organized a conference on future clinical trials in Helsinki and virtually, with the European Federation for Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (Efpia) and the Nordic Pharma Industry associations as supporters.
One third of the 343 registered participants attended on site. The conference attracted participants from different EU countries representing many different stakeholders.
Since 2015 several Nordic Conference on Clinical trials, Real World Data and Pediatric Medicines have been arranged. The goal for these conferences have been to increase the attractiveness of the Nordic Region for conducting research. Research collaboration can easily be supported by joint congresses and sharing on best practices. Providing arenas for networking between participants and stakeholders from the Nordic and other European countries has been central.
The participation was free of charge to all stakeholders and for the first time it was organized as a hybrid event.
This year’s conference focused on new kinds of clinical trials with digital elements and how the Nordic countries could be an attractive region for conducting such research. This could help attracting more investments from the pharmaceutical industry to the Nordic region. For a country with a small population, decentralized trials are one possible solution to enable clinical trials to be conducted from one national site e.g. with virtual visits and when necessary even at one Nordic site e.g. in orphan indications with only a couple of patients identified in the Nordic Region (topic of day 1). Several interesting topics were presented as Complex Clinical Trials, Pragmatic trials, use of Real World Data (RWD) for creating virtual control arms and better clinical endpoints as well as Transcelerate and InFlames – collaboration (topics of day 2).
The presentations (PDFs) are available here:
Innovation in Clinical Trials What has been achieved with CCTs and key challenges that need addressing
Leveraging technology for better clinical endpoints
Healthcare view and DCT in Norway
Patient centric, decentralized and virtual clinical trials – a national project
Designing decentralized clinical trials with a patient centric approach
Virtual elements in clinical trials
Unlocking new science with the power of digital health
Pragmatic clinical trials in vaccine evaluation
DCT – Perspective from Finland
The Promise of Decentralised Trials: What does Industry need to Consider
Utilizing Finnish nationwide RWD to create an external control arm to a clinical trial
The Future is today!