{"entity":{"id":"idea-tr2-combination-template-agreement","kind":"idea","name":"A standard cross-company combination agreement that takes weeks, not years, to sign","aka":[],"tldr":"Companies with drugs that might work together rarely test them because the legal negotiation takes longer than the trial. A pre-written standard contract would fix that.","summary":"The CRUK Combinations Alliance and NCI CTEP show that a neutral third party with template agreements can run combination studies across companies. Extending this to an industry-wide, pre-negotiated 'combination clinical trial agreement' (like the standard licences in software) covering supply, data, publication, IP on combination findings and a default revenue rule would remove the largest non-scientific barrier.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"NCI CTEP","url":"https://ctep.cancer.gov/"}],"tags":[],"related":["cruk","nci"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-combination-space","b-ip-collaboration"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Adoption of a template agreement by at least ten large sponsors will halve the median time from combination hypothesis to first patient dosed in academic-led cross-company combination trials.","rationale":"Standard material transfer and clinical trial agreements (for example the Accelerated Clinical Trial Agreement in the US) have already cut academic site contracting times. The combination-specific clauses (who owns a method-of-use patent, who supplies free drug) are the ones that stall.","test":"Draft with a neutral convenor (for example a cancer charity plus a trade body), sign with a coalition of sponsors, and measure time-to-agreement and time-to-first-patient for the next twenty combination trials versus the twenty before.","maturity":"early-clinical","actor":"industry","cost":"small","horizonYears":2},"route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-combination-template-agreement/","neighbours":{"institution":[{"id":"cruk","kind":"institution","name":"Cancer Research UK","route":"/institutions/cruk/"},{"id":"nci","kind":"institution","name":"National Cancer Institute (NIH)","route":"/institutions/nci/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-ip-collaboration","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Secrecy and intellectual property block collaboration","route":"/bottlenecks/b-ip-collaboration/"},{"id":"b-combination-space","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Too many combinations to test","route":"/bottlenecks/b-combination-space/"}],"idea":[{"id":"idea-tr2-combination-patent-pool","kind":"idea","name":"A patent pool for combination method-of-use claims","route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-combination-patent-pool/"},{"id":"idea-tr2-combo-readiness-dossier","kind":"idea","name":"Every approved cancer drug ships with a public combination-readiness data pack","route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-combo-readiness-dossier/"}]}}