What is a Material Transfer Agreement?

A Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) is a contract, generally without funds used to effect the transfer of one or more materials from the owner or authorized licensee to an institution for research purposes. These transactions may be between non-profit or for-profit institutions in any combination. Materials may be biological or chemical in nature and include the original material, derivatives, and progeny. The MTA form used is typically that of the providing institution but if the material is biological and both parties are signatories to the Uniform Biological Materials Transfer Agreement (UBMTA) Master Agreement, then the UBMTA may be used for proprietary materials or the Simple Letter Agreement for non-proprietary materials. These forms are available through our office.

MTAs, typically only a few pages in length, address many important issues, for example, use by the recipient, ownership of subsequent modifications or improvements, liability for loss or damage caused in using or storing the material. While most MTAs are routine and take very little time to execute, differing philosophies or institutional status may require that institutions negotiate terms before signing. For example, the University of Virginia is an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia and therefore may not commit to another state's law as governing the contract.

The School of Medicine's Office of Research Administration is the office designated to review all MTAs and obtain the authorized signature on behalf of the School of Medicine. We review for consistency with University guidelines and compliance with state law. To better serve our faculty and staff, we have provided a checklist for processing these documents. If you have any questions, please contact our main office (434) 924-8426.

 MTA Forms:

MTA Agreement Templates:

  MTA Checklist

What you do:

1. Complete the appropriate Material Transfer Approval Sheet (incoming or outgoing) - make sure that the Principal Investigator (PI) signs and dates it as well. The form provides background information necessary for review and serves as a further assurance of the PI's knowledge and approval of the transfer.

2. If applicable, include an IRB or IACUC approval.

3. Include two (2) original copies of the Material Transfer Agreement. If the providing organization has only given you one, that is acceptable.* Make sure that the PI has signed and dated all originals. If the Material Transfer Agreement contains blanks to be filled in, complete that information as it pertains to the PI.

4. When the documents are brought to the Office of Grants and Contracts for approval and institutional signature, complete a Material Transfer Processing form (pink), which is available in our office. Include a name and phone number of the person to call with questions and to call when the agreement has been signed. Also include any deadline information or special circumstances.

If the providing organization has sent its own MTA electronically, please forward that to the appropriate person reviewing the agreement.  Often the terms in MTAs from other organizations must be negotiated.  A redlined version is always helpful in these situations.

 

MTA Review and Negotiate process:

1. After we receive the MTA package from you, we review it to make sure that we have all of the information we requested in items 1-4 above. If we are missing information, we will call you.

2. We enter the MTA into a database that we use to track our work.

3. The contracts negotiator reviews the MTA for compliance with applicable law and University policy. If changes are required, a memo explaining the changes may be sent to the institution providing the MTA. Negotiations then begin, resulting in acceptance or modification of the terms, after which the authorized signature is obtained.

4. After obtaining School of Medicine approval, if the document is acceptable, the MTA is signed by the authorized institutional representative, the Director of Grants and Contracts in the Office of Sponsored Programs, for signature on behalf of the University of Virginia. After the MTA is signed, we make a copy of the agreement for our office - or, if the agreement is completely executed with our signature and we have made no changes which the sponsoring entity must approve - we will keep an original (if two are available).

5. The Office of Grants and Contracts will then send an electronic pdf copy to the PI and his or her office and send the MTA or back to the requesting or sponsoring organization. Both originals are returned if signatures are still needed or changes marked on the originals must be initialed. When an executed agreement is received back at the University of Virginia, a pdf of the executed agreement will be sent to the PI for his or her records.