The Contract Network Collaborates with Mayo Clinic to Streamline Clinical Trials Agreements

News provided by

Apr 11, 2023, 10:42 ET

ATLANTA, April 11, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Contract Network (https://thecontractnetwork.com), a startup collaboration platform focused on radically accelerating contract negotiations and simplifying contract compliance, has entered into a know-how agreement with Mayo Clinic to build a solution that will simplify the management and accelerate the negotiation of clinical trials agreements.

"Clinical trials are the very essence of innovation and advancement that benefit us all. Yet, these advancements are needlessly hampered by antiquated practices in the negotiation of clinical trial agreements," said Jim Wagner, co-founder and CEO of The Contract Network. "We envision a world where businesses collaborate with respect to their agreements seamlessly, achieve outcomes faster, and share vital information, deadlines, and milestones without friction. We are incredibly proud to make clinical trial agreements the first use case for our collaborative platform and to have the opportunity to play an integral role in promoting growth and innovation in such a meaningful context."

Much is at stake with efforts to accelerate clinical trial agreements. Clinical trials are foundational to developing new medical treatments and cures and tens of thousands of clinical trials agreements are negotiated annually in the US and globally, but the current negotiation processes for clinical trials agreements and related documentation are complex and time-consuming. This has led to significant delays in the launch of clinical trials, with average startup times often taking several months and prolonged contracting processes being a major contributing factor. [1] It's widely cited that the financial impact of such delays can run from $600,000 to as much as $8 million every single day.[2] Even more, holdups in trial initiation mean delays for doctors and their patients, who often suffer while they await trial approval.

"Any unnecessary delay standing between a doctor and her ability to provide her patients with the best possible care, especially a delay stemming from routine contract negotiations, is difficult to rationalize," says Jeff Ward, who teaches Future of Contracts and directs the Duke Center of Law & Tech. "We need drastically new approaches to contracting that address the substantive business requirements, while elevating real human needs."

The clinical trials use case is known for its common set of stakeholders (including sponsors, CROs, and institutions), for its consistent agreement types, and for its recurring set of negotiation issues. The use case and its participants are also subject to stringent regulatory requirements, including multi-year record-keeping and privacy concerns. The Contract Network solution for clinical trials agreements is being built with each of these needs in mind, enabling the key stakeholder groups to reach agreement faster and to securely collaborate with respect to their ongoing contract compliance requirements.

"We're excited to collaborate with Mayo Clinic in developing a solution that streamlines and expedites the clinical trials agreement negotiation process," continued Wagner of The Contract Network. "Our objective isn't just to enhance the experience for the contracting professionals involved, but also to have a positive impact on patients and the broader medical community by radically accelerating and simplifying the process of initiating new clinical trials."

The Contract Network, founded by Jim Wagner, most recently VP of Agreement Cloud Strategy at DocuSign, and former Blackstone CTO, Bill Murphy, has been developed in stealth mode for over a year, and is set to be formally launched in May 2023. This new collaborative platform is designed to enable businesses to "get to the point" in their contract negotiations, simplifying and repurposing decision-making processes from one agreement to the next, and dramatically accelerating transaction timelines as a result.

Mayo Clinic has a financial interest in the technology referenced in this press release. Mayo Clinic will use any revenue it receives to support its not-for-profit mission in patient care, education, and research.

For more information, please contact:

Lucy Fry, The Contract Network
[email protected]
https://thecontractnetwork.com

[1] See, e.g. https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/industries/life-sciences/10-steps-clinical-startup-eb.pdf
[2] As one of many examples, see: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greglicholai/2022/11/15/compelling-economics-of-decentralized-trials/?sh=71e154ae2944

SOURCE The Contract Network