Making Research Contracting Easier: The New CDA Joins a Growing Standards Library

Late September, the Site-Sponsor Consortium introduced a new mutual CDA template designed to streamline confidentiality agreements in clinical research. This is excellent news, and we applaud their effort wholeheartedly. The consortium—an equally weighted coalition of sponsors, CROs, and research sites—has done meaningful work to create a balanced, bilateral agreement that addresses real operational pain points.

We know that one size doesn’t fit all. Even with the best standard template, there are variables—governing law, specific institutional requirements, the occasional substantive term that needs adjustment. But here’s what matters: starting from a widely recognized standard dramatically simplifies review, accelerates study startup, and reduces risk for all parties. When both sides begin with a shared baseline, negotiation becomes refinement rather than reinvention.

What We Saw When We Analyzed the New Template

We ran the Site-Sponsor Consortium CDA through TCN’s market analysis immediately. The verdict? The agreement is dead on point—balanced, clear, and aligned with current market practice. Our AI identified only one area where we’d typically recommend attention: the absence of explicit language around publicity or use of logos, a protection many institutions consider essential.

We also noted something the consortium wisely chose not to include: a “no AI” clause. While the topic of AI use in contract processes continues to evolve, jamming prescriptive AI restrictions into every agreement today creates significant friction without meaningfully advancing anyone’s interests. The consortium kept things simpler, and we believe that approach will serve the industry well while we collectively figure out how to properly incorporate these protections without causing brain drain or deal derailment.

Standards Are Proliferating—and That’s a Good Thing

The Site-Sponsor Consortium CDA now joins a growing collection of industry-standard templates designed to accelerate research contracting. There’s the Accelerated Clinical Trial Agreement (ACTA) and Accelerated Confidential Disclosure Agreement (ACDA) from ARA4US. WCG’s MAGI Clinical Trial Agreement. AUTM’s Uniform Biological Material Transfer Agreement (UBMTA). The Federal Demonstration Partnership’s suite of Data Transfer and Use Agreements.

Each of these templates represents hundreds of hours of collaborative effort by sponsors, sites, and industry leaders working to eliminate unnecessary negotiation cycles. Each reflects hard-won consensus on what’s reasonable, what’s protective, and what actually matters. This convergence around shared standards is genuinely transformative for the research community.

But here’s the challenge: if you’re a research site evaluating a new trial opportunity, where do you find these templates? If you’re a sponsor trying to propose a faster path forward, how do you access the right form? And once you have it, is it formatted correctly? Is it the current version? Do you have the playbook that explains what sponsors typically accept and what sites usually require?

The Industry Built the Standards. We Built the Library.

The Contract Network is the only platform where all of these industry-standard templates live together—pre-formatted, AI-optimized, and ready to use. We’ve taken the templates that matter most to the research community and made them instantly accessible:

But templates alone aren’t the full story. Sometimes a standard form is the beginning and the end—you pull it, you sign it, you’re done. More often, it’s just the beginning. You receive an agreement from a counterparty and need to quickly assess: Is this close to standard? Have we seen this before? What’s changed since last time?

That’s where TCN’s AI-powered profiles and playbooks come in. We’ve built comprehensive review profiles—including our recently released Site-CTA Profile, Site-CDA Profile, and ACTA/ACDA Profiles—that work alongside these templates. When you receive an agreement, TCN automatically identifies whether you’ve negotiated similar language before and flags what’s different. Our AI Match and Markup tools generate targeted edits that stay within accepted norms, protect institutional priorities, and accelerate negotiations without sacrificing quality.

From Hunting to Having

In the past, moving fast in research meant hunting. Hunting for the right template. Hunting through email threads to find the last version you negotiated. Hunting for guidance on what’s market-standard and what’s an outlier.

With TCN, the hunting stops. Every major standard template is at your fingertips. Every profile and playbook is optimized to work with those templates. Every agreement you’ve negotiated before is searchable, comparable, and reusable. The result isn’t just convenience—it’s a fundamentally different operating model where speed and quality reinforce each other rather than trade off.

A Statement of Commitment

Building and maintaining this comprehensive library is just one more statement about our commitment to the research community as a whole. We don’t take sides. We don’t stack the deck. We believe that faster, more transparent negotiations benefit everyone—sponsors who need to activate sites quickly, sites who want to evaluate opportunities efficiently, and ultimately the patients waiting for new therapies.

The clinical research industry is finally converging around shared standards. The Site-Sponsor Consortium’s new CDA is the latest proof point. At The Contract Network, we’re honored to be the place where all of those standards come together—not just as static documents, but as living tools that make collaboration faster, easier, and more effective.

Because when the industry agrees on what’s reasonable, the only thing left is execution. And that’s where we can help.

Ready to see how TCN’s template library and AI-powered profiles can accelerate your research contracting? Schedule a demo or explore our standards-aligned templates today.