Pay-when-paid model of clinical trial site payments is widely used in cases when conduct of a clinical trial is outsourced, fully or partially, to a CRO or specific service provider managing site payments in particular. Pay-when-paid model is the reality that often doesn’t depend on whether a clinical trial agreement (CTA) contains the corresponding wording or not, since according to the Good Clinical Practice, the Sponsor has the ultimate responsibility for financial aspects of the clinical trial and it is quite clear that the CRO can perform site payments after the corresponding funds are received from the Sponsor.

So, is it really that important to keep pay-when-paid wording in the CTA?

On the one hand, it looks rational. Pay-when-paid section in the CTA provides some important information to the site about CRO-Sponsor relationship that directly impacts site payments, consequently, it adds transparency to Sponsor-CRO-Site financial logistics. Not to mention, pay-when-paid protects CRO from the potential site’s claims about delayed payments (of course, if such delay resulted from late transfer of funds from the Sponsor to the CRO). So, seems everyone should be happy to have this rational and transparent sections in the CTA, but the day to day activity shows us that this section in most cases eliminated from the contract at negotiation stage.

In practice, one can come across a few scenarios.

Keeping the wording in the CTA or not at the template stage – it is the choice of the Sponsor/CRO, there is no general advice, but it can depend on each particular case. If the site and the CRO/Sponsor are familiar to each other, if they have good cooperation background and gained great level of mutual trust, pay-when-paid wording can be mutually beneficial.

Should the site be new to the CRO/Sponsor, the approach should be ready to be flexible on pay-when-paid wording. It can be included in the CTA template with the option to easily remove it if the site insists.

Another situation – site and CRO/Sponsor have not a very positive background (site payments queries or challenges ). Here, an exceptionally thoughtful decision is to be made be made.

Site payments is an extensive topic, that is surely not limited to pay-when-paid. Correctness and timeliness of site payments – these two aspects are the main concern of the clinical trial market.

We, at CTA Focus, are proud to have contractual solutions ensuring site payments are no longer a headache of any party to the CTA.