A national biobank infrastructure for global research collaboration

Biobank Norway represents one of the world´s largest existing resources within biobanking covering both consented population-based and disease-specific clinical biobanks.

Biobanks in Norway also have access to the unparalleled longitudinal health data making it a unique asset for global research and innovation projects within life sciences, disease prevention and treatment.

Biobank Norway represents one of the world´s largest existing resources within biobanking covering both consented population-based and disease-specific clinical biobanks.

Biobanks in Norway also have access to the unparalleled longitudinal health data making it a unique asset for global research and innovation projects within life sciences, disease prevention and treatment.

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What makes Biobank Norway
a great R&D partner

Unparalleled biobank resource
Unparalleled biobank resource
Population based cohort studies
Hospital-based and disease specific
List of biobanks
Trust as a hallmark
Trust as a hallmark
11-digit personal ID
5,3 million Norwegians
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Unique health data
Unique health data
52 disease-specific registries
17 nation-wide registries
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We're proud to present our biobanks

Clinical biobanks

Norway has several hundreds of disease specific clinical biobanks. Here we present a few exceptional ones, ready for R&D collaboration ranging from rare liver disease, cancer and neuropsychiatric diseases. We will continuously add new clinical biobanks.

Population-based biobanks

More than 800,000 Norwegians have enrolled in consented population-based biobanks, and some are still recruiting. The selected cohorts and biobanks we present here have genotyped approx 400,000 people and also collected a vast amount of information based on self-reporting, interviews and measurements. 

Population based
Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study
The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study is a unique birth cohort and biobank that recruited 95,000 pregnant women from 1998 to 2008 giving birth to 114,000 children. More than 70,000 fathers have participated.
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Clinical based
Norwegian Research Biobank for Multiple Myeloma
The multiple myeloma biobank started in the early 1990-ies. Currently it comprises serial serum, cells and bone marrow aspirates from 3,000 patients.
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Clinical based
Prospective Breast Cancer Biobank
The Prospective Breast Cancer is a longitudinal prospective cohort study in Western Norway that include 1,200 newly diagnosed and operable breast cancer patients. The cohort is followed with yearly visits and serial sampling making it a unique cohort for the study of breast cancer development.
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Population based
The Hordaland Health Studies
Includes 36,000 subjects from the Hordaland county recruited in 1992/93 (n=18,000) and in 1997/99 (n=26,000). The main focus of the studies is on chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, cancer, osteoporosis, anxiety and depression.
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Population based
The HUNT Study - a longitudinal population health study in Norway
The HUNT Study is one of the largest health studies ever performed comprising 140,000 people recruited in four rounds since the mid 1980-ies. It is a unique database of genetics, questionnaires, clinical measurements and biobanked samples.
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Population based
The Janus Serum Bank
The Janus Serum Bank is a unique cancer specific cohort with blood samples from 318,628 Norwegians. The cohort recruited from 1974 to 2004 and so far, close to 90,000 subjects have developed incident cancer.
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Clinical based
The Norwegian biobank for primary sclerosing cholangitis
The NoPSC Biobank is a state-of-the-art biobank for primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). It is one of the largest PSC biobank in the world collecting a range of different matrices and high-quality phenotypic data.
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Clinical based
The Norwegian register and biobank for multiple sclerosis
The Norwegian MS register and biobank recruits samples and data from all neurological departments in Norway. 7,000 MS patients are included, and the sample collection includes serum, CSF, DNA and subset with tissue.
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Clinical based
The Prostate Biobank
The Prostate Cancer Biobank collects samples and data from men undergoing radical prostatectomy in the Oslo-area from 1994 and onward. The biobank includes 3,000 patients with archival formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue, fresh frozen tissue and blood samples around the time of surgery.
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Clinical based
The thematic breast cancer study
The Oslo-2 study is an ongoing register and biobank that comprises all women undergoing breast cancer surgery in the Oslo area. Blood and fresh frozen tissue along with high-quality phenotypic data are retrieved from 2,400 women so far.
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Population based
The Tromsø Study
The Tromsø Study was initiated in 1974 in an attempt to help combat the high mortality due to cardiovascular diseases in Norway. Over the years the cohort has been expanded and now include over 40,000 people and holds unique phenotypic data.
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Clinical based
Thematic study and biobank of serious psychiatric illnesses
The TOP Study and Biobank is a collection of 4,500 patients recruited from psychiatric units across Norway. The cohort includes a spectre of psychiatric diseases and collects samples and phenotypic data longitudinally.
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