Conditions Of Access To The Active And Open Repositories
Material Transfer Agreement
The staff of the Natural Products Branch will be administratively responsible for the operation of this program. Successful applicants will subsequently deal directly with the Branch to request material and report scientific results.
Organizations and individual investigators whose applications are approved will be provided selected samples under the terms of a Material Transfer Agreement, which has been modified from the standard Public Health Service (PHS) agreement to meet the specific needs of this program. Important aspects of this agreement are:
- Recipients must agree to protect the interests of the Countries of Origin providing the materials to NCI.
- The NCI will retain ownership of the material per se. Such ownership is separate from intellectual property rights.
- The recipient will pay the "out-of-pocket" costs of preparing and shipping samples.
- In no case will a sample be provided that depletes the supply of that material or otherwise affects adversely NCI's own efforts.
- Unused samples will be disposed of by mutual agreement.
- A reporting procedure will be established to assure that NCI is kept informed of the usage of Research Materials. To this end, recipients are encouraged to contact the NPB as early as possible once a particular extract has proven to be of interest in order that suitable arrangements for further development may be agreed upon by all parties These may include full taxonomic identification; provision of more extracted Research Material; aid in obtaining raw material via the then current Collection Contractors; or the negotiation of a formal Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA).
- Research results derived from this Research Material will be transmitted in a timely manner to the NCI.
- A summary of the screening results relating to the Research Material and any purified natural products will be provided to the relevant organizations in the Countries of Origin.
- Safeguards will be installed to prevent disclosure of proprietary information during this interchange.
- As part of this interchange of information, if a research organization has been identified within the Country of Origin that is actively pursuing studies in the relevant scientific area, then the recipient will be informed with the aim of facilitating collaborative studies.
- All test information that is provided to recipient, collector, and the Country of Origin government or an appropriate organization within the Country of Origin is to be maintained as 'CONFIDENTIAL' with any publication delayed until DTP authorizes release to outside parties.
- The NCI will not grant unlimited access to Research Materials within the repository. The selection of samples will be determined by the NCI after discussion with the recipient, and the size of samples will be limited to that required for primary and limited secondary testing in the recipient's screens.
- Large amounts of raw material required for isolation and development of active agents will generally be obtained by recipients at their own expense and in accordance with established agreements among NCI, its collecting agents and the Source Country Organization. In specific cases, however, the NCI may agree to participate with the investigator(s) in the recollection process to procure additional raw and/or Research Material if the initial findings are scientifically of substantial interest to the program.