Research Ethics Board Review Fees

Unity Health Toronto charges a $3000 CAD fee for the REB review of industry-sponsored research. Unity Health Toronto also charges a fee of $100 CAD to retrieve a closed and archived file.

Please be advised after August 31, 2019, the ORA will be charging research activities the REB costs directly, once the REB application has been submitted to Unity Health Toronto REB. Those REB applications submitted prior to August 31, 2019, the ORA will continue to assist in invoicing the sponsor if required.

REB cost recovery from the sponsor is at the responsibility of the study team as of September 01, 2019. Fees will remain unchanged in the short term.

Fee Criteria: Research Sponsored by Industry

The REB administration fee applies to the research that receives its funding from an industry sponsor (ie. Pharmaceutical/biotech/medical device company). The administration fee is for the review of the application by the Unity Health Toronto Research Ethics Board. The fee covers the initial ethics review of a protocol and all subsequent REB activities such as amendments, annual renewals, and ongoing monitoring. As such, REB Fees are non-refundable and will be paid to the institution upon execution of the agreement; it is also payable regardless of the approval status of the protocol.  The fee is charged for REB submission, not REB approval. This fee will have no impact on the Board’s decision. The REB has the right to withhold approval pending receipt of payment. The fee will be refunded if the protocol is withdrawn prior to review. This fee is applicable as of October 15 2015.  These rates are subject to review and revision by the Vice President, Research.

A fee of $100.00 will be charged to the PIs activity to those archived protocols that need to be retrieved.  Fee charged to retrieve a closed and archived file. These rates are subject to review and revision by the Vice President, Research.

Fee Waiver Criteria

The following types of studies are excluded from the fee requirements:

  1. Studies authored, initiated and conducted by a Unity Health Toronto Research where the intellectual property belongs to the researchers, the research owns and can alter the research protocol without influence from the funder and the funder is not an industry sponsored organization.
  2. Grants funded from the public, charitable or not-for-profit organization, for example, CIHR, NIH or a disease-specific foundation.
  3. Studies funded by Unity Health Toronto internal grants
  4. Unfunded studies

Billing of REB Administration Fees

REB administration fees will be billed directly to the Principal Investigator of the study. If an industry sponsor request REB administration fee invoices to be billed directly to them, it is the responsibility of the PI to create an invoice to submit to the Sponsor, using the Unity Health Toronto template as a backup documentation. Fees will be taken from the study activity. Unity Health Toronto will not issue invoices directly to the industry sponsors/partners after September 1, 2019.

Please direct questions related to the REB administration fee to researchethics@unityhealth.to and researchfinance@smh.ca

Partnership with Study Team

To ensure REB payment details and terms are included, contract reviewers at Unity Health Toronto will make efforts to ensure these details are included in the contract.

We rely on the partnership with the study teams to lead the invoicing process because of the below reasons:

Proximity

  • The study team is closest to the study/project. The study team has immediate access to and when services/milestones/CRF’s/Vendor Invoices are received. The intent is to reduce avoidable back and forth and improve the timeliness of invoicing.
  • The study team is aware of members applicable to the grant.
  • The study team is aware of invoiced items to the sponsor. This will avoid double billing the sponsor.
  • The study team is responsible for following up on internal/external documents to support invoices.

Authorization

  • The study team has direct communication to the Sponsor’s coordinator for the study to ensure authorized communication.

Ownership

  • More ownership to the Study teams on managing the finances of the Study/Project.