Norway has adopted a national category plan for medicines, setting a common strategic approach for medicine procurement and contract management across the specialist health service. The plan replaces the 2018–2026 medicines strategy and gives procurement a broader role across access, supply security, sustainability and coordination.
Sykehusinnkjøp HF (Norwegian Hospital Procurement Trust, SYKEHUSINNKJØP) developed the plan after internal, consumption, sustainability and market analyses, and after consultation through cross-functional health-service groups. The board paper for the 16 June 2026 meeting asked the board to approve the plan and take note of a draft action plan, with further prioritisation to be developed with a cross-disciplinary resource group.
The plan’s main objective is ‘best possible patient treatment through future-oriented and responsible medicine procurement’. It sets three supporting goals: making the right medicines available to patients, ensuring secure and forward-looking supply, and strengthening collaboration between actors in the supply chain.
The policy context is wider than tender management. The plan points to more new medicines, higher-cost therapies, weaker evidence at approval, geopolitical pressure, European pharmaceutical-policy developments and international debate over willingness to pay. It also identifies effective negotiations, suitable agreement tools, sustainable competition for established medicines, digital contract implementation and closer Nordic and European cooperation as areas for action.
The plan should give suppliers a clearer view of how Norway intends to manage hospital-medicine procurement over the next period. Its practical effect will depend on the action plan, but the direction is clear: medicine purchasing is being treated as a national access and supply-policy instrument, not only as a route to lower unit prices.
Source: Sykehusinnkjøp HF (Norwegian Hospital Procurement Trust, SYKEHUSINNKJØP)
Link: Sak 46/2026 Kategoriplan for legemidler (Case 46/2026 Category plan for medicines)
Date: 16 June 2026
