NCI is providing an additional $10 million to support trials run with the National Clinical Trials Network and the NCI Community Oncology Research Program, Norman “Ned” Sharpless said in his first appearance as NCI director at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. “NCI’s major efforts with regards to large clinical trials are largely supported through our clinical trials networks like the National Clinical Trials Network,” Sharpless said in his June 2 talk at ASCO. “One of the major challenges for these networks over the past few years, however, has been a rapid increase in the per-patient costs for patients on trials.