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Industry has a growing interest in the research capabilities of the MGH. One component of that interest is the potential for new products that might result from the research. The MGH has a long and positive experience of working in collaboration with industry to help foster technology transfer for the greater public good. The benefit to the institution also has been significant, resulting today in industrial support amounting to approximately one third of the MGH research budget, and a small but significant and growing flow of royalty income which supports unrestricted research and benefits the inventors directly.

All agreements between MGH and industry protect the researchers' freedom to choose subjects and directions of research; to publish, communicate, and discuss research results; and to collaborate with other investigators. An industry-sponsored project must have a significant element of research involved; it cannot be a project only for the development of a product.

Industry agreements also address mechanisms for use, sharing, and disposition of biological materials, the rights to the results of the research (both data and intellectual property), the use of other outside funding in the research, time frames, budgets, reporting processes, publications/communication notification requirements, scientific and administrative oversight, and other aspects perhaps unique to a given industry or project. Thus, it is essential that each agreement negotiated by checked carefully to assure that, among other things, the terms and conditions of one agreement are not in conflict with terms and conditions of other agreements.

Each of these issues may be handled slightly differently for each industrial sponsor involved. There is no "standard" agreement with industry, since each company has its own particular interests and needs to meet. Each agreement is tailored to the needs of the MGH researcher and the particular company involved. All agreements, however, must maintain the academic freedom of the researchers and be consistent with all other MGH policies.