Dear Colleagues:

 

At our institution, we have a situation where several of our faculty have created compounds in their research with internal funding.  While the compounds failed to be useful for their intended use because of toxicity problems, we have been approached by industry about obtaining these compounds for screening to determine if they demonstrate activity in the industry's area(s) of intended use.  In past times we have provided compounds for such screenings under sponsored research agreements.
 
We now believe that such should be handled as MTA's.  Based on that fact, we have encountered several questions/issues with which we need to deal.  Those issues are:
 
1.  Is a disclosure required for each compound sent for screening?  If not, how do you deal with issues related to inventorship/royalty distribution if one of the compounds turns out to be a "winner?"

2.  How do we determine the total costs to charge industry for the compounds?  Should it be a combination of actual costs + royalties (plus shipping costs)?  The assumption would be that we would of course collect actual costs first.

 

These are not the only issues, but ones for which we seek your advice and counsel.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Steve Etheredge

 

R. Steven Etheredge, Associate Director
Sponsored Programs & Research
University of South Carolina
(803) 777-4457
(803) 777-4136 fax
xxxxxx@gwm.sc.edu