Do you want to collaborate and share that hot new cell line or antibody with your colleagues across the country? Have you been asked to sign an access agreement to get insights from the last clinical study from your friend’s group at another university?

If so, you have likely worked with the Office for Technology Transfer (OTT) to negotiate Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs) or Data Use Agreements (DUAs) with the non-Emory investigators and their institutions that are often required for these collaborations. OTT is currently working with the Dragon Team (Strategic Operations) to optimize the process for negotiating and executing these contracts in hopes to reduce the number of “outlier” contracts that require extended processing times, and to increase communication and transparency with researchers throughout the contracting process. Included in this newsletter is a process map of the steps taken to negotiate each contract that enters the office.

OTT has been working behind the scenes and is close to launching Contract Connect, an online submission system for new MTAs and DUAs that will allow researchers to more efficiently submit contracts to OTT for review and to reduce the reliance on email, which often slows down the process. By streamlining the review and negotiation process and launching the new submission system, OTT will ensure that Emory researchers can quickly and easily collaborate with external collaborators and their institutions.

Until Contract Connect is up and running, researchers should continue to use the MTA/DUA-specific email address (OTT-MTA@emory.edu) for all relevant correspondence. Additionally, researchers can speed review by including relevant information in the applicable MTA or DUA questionnaire when submitting contracts to OTT. These forms can be found at: http://www.ott.emory.edu/forms/index.html