Dear reader
The SCTO and its network of decentralised Clinical Trial Units (CTUs) have been serving patients and society as a whole since 2008 and have been contributing to a competitive and first-class position of Switzerland as a place for research and innovation. Despite the challenging financial environment and the non-association of Switzerland to the Horizon Europe funding programme, in 2023 the SCTO continued on its mission to enable high-quality clinical research. In the upcoming year, the SCTO will pursue its mission to the research community by fostering and intensifying collaboration between the national research infrastructures, by strengthening the CTU Network, and by increasing the harmonisation of clinical research through tools, guidance, and relevant services. Its decentralised organisation has allowed the SCTO and its network to rapidly adapt to new requirements of the clinical research community and to serve as a local entry point for many questions related to data- and sample-driven research that is governed by Switzerland’s Human Research Ordinance (HRO).
In 2023, the SCTO Platforms continued to develop new open resource tools in diverse areas of clinical research. These tools aim to facilitate clinical research and harmonise processes within Switzerland. With a strong focus on HRO projects, networking with partner organisations and external experts could be further intensified, thus enabling the Platforms to build environment required to implement innovation.
The SCTO continues to support patient and public involvement (PPI) by helping clinical researchers to find patient experts for specific research projects, by supporting patients and PPI experts to participate in different lectures and training, and by developing tools and resources that are publicly available. In addition, the SCTO’s CTU Network has become the country’s largest provider of training and continuing education programmes aimed at building up the next generation of the clinical research workforce. Over the years, the number of both courses and participants have significantly increased, and a growing number of online training opportunities are now available. In 2023, more than 8,000 clinical researchers and clinical research professionals participated in training programmes offered by the SCTO Network.
The SCTO has taken a strong position on the partial revision of the ordinances related to the Human Research Act (HRA) in order to ensure favourable framework conditions for clinical research in the future. The SCTO has also intensified its dialogue with the authorities, taking part in challenging discussions on general consent implementation as a prerequisite for the secondary use of patient data for research purposes.
In 2023, the SCTO became an official full member of the European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN), thus intensifying the collaboration between the Swiss and European infrastructures and allowing Switzerland to be part of competitive, multicentre clinical trials at the European level.
This annual report describes in detail the SCTO’s activities over the past year. We hope that you enjoy reading this report and that the activities described in it give you a more in-depth understanding of the clinical research landscape in Switzerland.
Yours sincerely
Prof. Christiane Pauli-Magnus
President