Development of Alliance Agreements in the Era of Outbreaks

Project Summary

This project summarizes the existing sample agreements from different institutions, analyzes the key contractual issues in the formation of alliances, and develops master charts of legal provisions to compare different approaches, to provide a reference for the formation of new alliances in the era of epidemic disease outbreaks. 

Themes and Categories
Health, Public Policy
Health Systems Operations
Year

Key Contractual Issues in the Formation of New Alliances

Project Team

Beibei Sun, Duke University School of Law, J.D.’16 

Mentor: Professor Julie Barnes-Weise, Duke 

Funding: 

Methodology

Reviewed existing model and related agreements;

  • Identified applicable key terms;
  • Identified major approaches to specific issues;
  • Developed master chart of specific terms from designated agreements;
  • Adapted existing terms to the needs of a multi-party alliance for development of vaccines and therapies to treat and protect against an epidemic disease outbreak. 

Conclusion

The legal framework substantially affects the outcome and efficiency of the alliance formation.

  • The four key issues are usually central of the negotiation.
  • Which approaches to adopt is determined by the purpose and scope of the alliance. 

Download the poster with more details about the project. 

Related Projects

Big Data for Reproductive Health (Year 2)

A team of students led by faculty and researchers from the School of Medicine, the Center for Global Reproductive Health at the Duke Global Health Institute, and the Duke Evidence Lab will collaborate on the user interface for a tool developed to help advocates and policymakers target family planning resources to key populations in low resource populations. Team members will traverse the app development lifecycle while contributing to a tool that can improve global reproductive health.

Faculty Lead: Megan Huchko

Project Manager: Amy Finnegan

Urodynamic Data and Machine Learning

A team of students led by Drs. Aquino (Engineering) and Routh (Urologic Surgery) will develop objective algorithms in order to guide data interpretation from a urology test, known as urodynamics, which is used in children with spina bifida in order to define a patient’s risk of debilitating bladder and kidney complications.  Urodynamics involves dynamic pressure monitoring as the bladder is filled with fluid.  This project is part of a 21-institution collaboration coordinated and funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the long-term goal of defining optimal management strategies for children with spina bifida. The short-term goal of this Data+ application is to define initial features of urodynamics that can be applied to increasingly complex future algorithms in order to guide clinical interpretations that determine whether, for example, children need reconstructive surgery in order to avoid complications of their disease.

Faculty Leads: Wilkins Aquino, Jonathan Routh

Optimizing Risk Assessment for Duke University Student Athlete Injury Prevention

A team of students led by researchers from the Michael W. Krzyzewski Human Performance Laboratory (K-Lab) will develop an analytic and report generating web-based application to help the K-Lab reduce musculoskeletal injuries in student-athletes at Duke University. This tool will produce actionable, student-athlete-specific reports that incorporate the analysis of previous injury history and current capabilities (K-Lab assessments) in order to identify injury risk and develop individualized recommendations for injury prevention. Students will develop analytic tools and scoring criteria to assess injury risk through profiling of data based on minimally clinically important differences, injury profiles, peer group analysis, and injury risk scoring strategies based on a comprehensive set of performance metrics. Injury risk identification will be furthered enhanced by clustering data analysis around joint or tissue specific injury risk, previous injury history, and athlete capabilities (strength, flexibility, and postural stability). The final deliverable will enhance injury prevention strategies for student-athletes and other populations by bridging the analytic gap between injury risk screening and actionable injury prevention strategies.

Faculty Lead: Dr. Tim Sell

Project Manager: Brinnae Bent