Nationally approved standard agreements help speed up the contracting process for industry-sponsored trials carried out in the NHS by removing the need for site-by-site reviews and local legal agreements to be drawn up. This would then enable trials to start earlier, improve the speed of industry-sponsored clinical trials and give NHS patients faster access to innovative treatments.
New versions of model agreements between research sponsors and host institutions have been published on the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) website and include definitions of an ‘agent’ that are referred to in the Bribery Act 2010. These changes have been agreed by the UK Health Departments, the NIHR and industry bodies.