UC Master and Accelerated Clinical Trial Agreements

Contract negotiation is a critical part of any successful research enterprise, and UC BRAID's industry contracting experts are finding new ways to improve turnaround times for contract execution. From new master contracts to a toolkit for Investigator Initiated Trials, UC BRAID's contracting team continually seeks better ways to negotiate and finalize clinical trial agreements, which gets clinical trials up-and-running more efficiently. To this end, UC BRAID convened a regional network of contracting directors to operationalize and measure common metrics as a basis for performance improvement efforts, focusing on developing the UC Master Agreements and the Accelerated Clinical Trial Agreement. The goals of this program are to: measure and improve clinical trial contracting performance; share best practices and lessons learned; increase collaboration for multisite clinical trial agreement (CTA) negotiations; and mitigate redundant effort and conserve resources.

The UC Master Agreements and the Accelerated Clinical Trial Agreement have shown significant improvements in contractual negotiations for investigators. For example, when comparing the average days to contract terms finalized, both the UC Master Agreements and the Accelerated Clinical Trial Agreement (ACTA) were 45% faster when compared to the contracts which did not use a master agreement. These analyses led UC BRAID to identify, share and implement best practices across its institutions. 

For more information on UC BRAID's contracting resources, please visit the Contracting Group webpage.

Last updated
January 3, 2024