Sponsored Programs and Procurement: Moving research forward from behind the scenes

As described in a recent UVAToday piece, George Christ, a professor of biomedical engineering and orthopedic surgery at UVA, is leading the way for UVA to participate in a consortium of other industry, government, academic and non-profit entities whose goal it is to find common denominators in the cell and tissue engineering process in order to develop improved and more consistent manufacturing processes. Christ is also at the helm of two multi-institutional efforts to develop other tissue-engineering/biomaterials platforms to support pilot clinical trials funded by the Department of Defense.

Dr. Christ says Sponsored Programs and Procurement
play a key role in moving research forward at UVA.

For Christ, who also leads UVA’s Laboratory of Regenerative Therapeutics, the long-term goal is repairing combat injuries of US soldiers. Bioprinting provides another important platform for developing regenerative approaches to muscle tissue repair.

There was only one company that could provide the technology that delivered the level of expertise and resources required for the precise cell placement and connectivity required for muscle tissue replacement in the presence of minimal bio ink:  a west-coast based company called Organovo.

As Christ explained, “they have developed an instrument and approach that is unlike any other; they have nearly 10 years of know-how, but they’re not experts in muscle like we are.  And if a company has 10 years of expertise, I don’t want to spend 10 years catching up to them; I want to collaborate on things that are of mutual interest.”

 “What we do is outside their bandwidth, but we’re really good at it, and vice-versa, so there was a natural synergy,” said Christ.

Christ proposed to Organovo that they lease their bioprinter to UVA and agree to share protected know-how with each other.

Although Organovo was very interested in Christ’s proposal, they wanted a thorough understanding of timeline, outcomes, and other parameters.  What was needed was a carefully-arranged agreement detailing what both sides of this partnership could expect in terms of intellectual property, timelines, milestones and more, details that Christ recognized as obviously important, but not something he wanted to have to figure out himself.

Christ reached out to Kristy Hall, Director of Contracts in the Office of Sponsored Programs, and Hall took the challenge of mapping out the internal and external partnerships that were needed to effect an agreement between Organovo and UVA. 

Close coordination between several people and departments would be required for the agreement to take shape in the time frame that Christ and his team required.

“This is a ‘non-funded’ agreement in the Sponsored Programs sense,” said Hall; “and things aren’t straightforward because the contract falls into that space between Procurement and Sponsored Programs.”

Because of that intersection, Procurement and Supplier Diversity Services and the Office of Sponsored Programs would need to coordinate on which area was responsible for what pieces of the contract and work out what risks might affect either group.

Hall conferred with John McHugh, Assistant Director of Procurement Services, and together they hashed out the concerns that would need to be addressed from each of their perspectives – things like indemnification, governing law, risk management, intellectual property and data security concerns. 

It made sense that Sponsored Programs would handle the agreement, while Procurement would help them navigate the University’s requirements for competition.

“Clearly, it wasn’t possible for any other company to compete with Organovo in this instance,” said McHugh. 

“Because we do a lot of work with research and development, though, we have guidelines in place that exempt research purchases, in some cases, from the sole source process and reduce the paperwork involved.”

Bill Shoelwer of Sponsored Programs

With that solid footing, Hall was then able to turn the negotiation of the contracts over to Bill Schoelwer in Sponsored Programs, who began crafting a custom-built agreement with lots of complicated factors in play.

Schoelwer realized right away that the stakes were high with this project.  On day two of Schoelwer’s negotiations with Organovo, the article describing George Christ and Shayn Pierce-Cottler’s research appeared in UVAToday.

“The work they’re doing is so important,” said Schoelwer.

 “I felt extra motivated based on the important outcomes at stake to make sure I did my part well.  We’re expecting there to be important developments coming out of this project, and we want to account for that in the agreement and make sure all parties’ interests are accommodated.”

According to Christ, Sponsored Programs “helped keep the pendulum in the middle” in terms of making sure both UVA and Organovo felt comfortable with the terms of the collaboration, its goals, and what happened with the resulting and potentially groundbreaking developments.

The agreement was soon completed to all parties’ satisfaction and the deal was closed within the required timeframe, and as a result, Christ and his lab are set up with the right machinery to support their minds and goals.

“There were so many collaborators who worked on this,” Christ said, adding “there’s a whole ecosystem in place that helps move these key advancements forward.”

For those collaborators in PSDS and Sponsored Programs, they’re just happy the work they do helps support UVA’s research mission. 

“These are the types of things that keep me excited about what we do every day,” said Hall. 

Schoelwer said he can’t wait to see what happens with the project.  “I’ll be checking the newspapers to see what happens,” he said. 

“I’m glad I got to be behind the scenes, enabling researchers to do what they’re best at.”