Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs)
The sharing of reagents and materials is widespread throughout the scientific
community and is vital for the progress of research. Most commercial
organisations (and an increasing number of academic institutions) will only
release materials if there is a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) in place
between the provider and the recipient.
What is an MTA?
An MTA is a contract that governs the transfer of materials from the owner (or
authorised licensee) to a third party for internal research purposes only.
Materials may include cultures, cell lines, plasmids, nucleotides, proteins,
bacteria, transgenic animals, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. MTAs can
also be applicable for the transfer of materials in engineering/physical science.
What are the advantages?
For the provider, an MTA provides several comforts including restricting the use of
the material to non-commercial research, and reducing the provider's legal
liability for the recipient's use of the material. In addition, the terms of
the MTA can help the provider to gain access to the results of the research,
both for information purposes and for commercial exploitation.
Types of MTA
The Research Operations Office is authorised to sign incoming and outgoing MTAs on behalf of the University:
- Incoming MTAs govern the transfer of research materials to the University from other research institutions and commercial organisations, while ensuring that the research interests of the University and its researchers are protected
- Outgoing MTAs govern the supply of materials from University researchers to outside organisations, if the researcher feels their materials are particularly valuable and wishes to have some controls placed on their use.
Our responsibilities
It is important that we review all MTAs to make sure that the University does not
agree to terms that may be in conflict with the provisions of research grants,
fellowships, consultancies and so on. For example, the terms of some
grant-funding bodies (including Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK, British
Heart Foundation) are such that signing an MTA that gives the provider rights
to the results of grant-funded research would be a breach of the grant
conditions. Among the important issues to be negotiated are publication rights
and intellectual property (IP) rights.
- Publication rights. Many MTAs from commercial organisations will seek to put restrictions on publication
of research results. Although it is reasonable for providers to have access to
copies of proposed publications or oral presentations in advance to remove
confidential information and possibly to prepare patent filings, publications
should not be subject to unreasonable or indefinite time delays or to the outright
veto of the provider. Companies/institutions should also not be allowed to
control the content of publications, beyond the removal of their own
confidential information.
- IP rights. Ownership of IP generated by externally funded research is initially vested with the
University. However, many commercial providers frequently attempt to claim
outright ownership of IP generated by the recipient for themselves, or to ask
for free licences to the research results. Such agreements mean that the
provider is, in effect, obtaining free contract research and, if an invention
is developed and commercialised, there is no return either to the University or
to the inventor for their contribution. However, it is reasonable for the
provider to be offered some consideration for the supply of the materials, and
one compromise is to offer the provider an option to a royalty-bearing licence
to any inventions arising from the use of the materials. IP rights are not such
an issue with inter-institutional MTAs, which usually allow the recipient to
commercialise research results provided that there is an equitable return to
the provider for the contribution made by the supply of the materials.
Need further information?
Please
contact the Contracts Manager
in the relevant team.
