Mir Masud-Elias brings over 20 years of transactional and management experience as a business and legal counselor spanning multiple industries, including tax-exempt organizations, life sciences, healthcare, academic research, pharmaceutical, and financial services. She has extensive experience structuring and negotiating complex research collaborations between for-and nonprofit entities, as well as advising research-focused nonprofits and emerging technology companies.
From 2011 to 2024, Mir served as in-house counsel at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in progressively responsible roles. Most recently, she was Chief Counsel and Executive Director of Legal Affairs at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) where she provided strategic legal and business advice to key institutional stakeholders and ACC’s external advisory board alongside her general counsel responsibilities in coordination with multiple Penn offices, departments, and all Penn Medicine locations. Mir led and delivered on research and IP monetization goals via a diverse array of research-related agreements, corporate transactional, as well as domestic and international commercial arrangements, and numerous regulatory and compliance issues. She also oversaw an expanding portfolio of key alliances with corporate and nonprofit collaborators. During her tenure at Penn, Mir successfully moved novel ideas forward to make a difference in medical care for Penn patients.
Prior to Penn’s ACC, Mir spent more than a decade as a corporate transactional lawyer at several large national law firms, where she structured and negotiated more than $3 billion in deals for both public and private companies. Her practice focused on corporate governance, strategic alliances, M&A, divestitures, joint ventures, and venture capital.
In addition to her corporate experience, Mir has held and currently holds several volunteer leadership and fundraising roles with various nonprofit and professional organizations. Prior to attending Amherst College, she spent two years at the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) doing undergraduate work in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics.
Experience
- Led ACC’s negotiating team in restructuring a multimillion-dollar, complex research collaboration with a nonprofit cancer research foundation, as well as renewing and amending the same under revised terms.*
- Structured a complex research collaboration among the University of Pennsylvania, Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, and The Allen Institute.*
- Served as key member of ACC’s negotiating team to unwind a multimillion-dollar complex research collaboration with a major global pharmaceutical company.*
- Structured and negotiated various research consortium agreements among universities and provided ongoing advice regarding Penn’s participation in the same.*
- Served as the only lawyer at Penn to hold a business development role in immunotherapy and immunology transactions.*
- Designed, built, and mentored proactive business-oriented legal and compliance functions, including the establishment of the ACC Legal Affairs office from the ground up.*
- Led the ACC in various successful and lucrative research collaborations with for-profit genetic sequencing service providers, while addressing the varied concerns of internal stakeholder expectations, including privacy, regulatory, and compliance.*
- Drafted the key protective provisions in clinical trial and other research agreements to mitigate risks associated with industry collaborators using certain foreign-based T-cell manufacturing vendors. This in turn allowed critical clinical research to proceed at Penn.*
*Reflects experience at previous employer.
Perspectives
Credentials
Education
- M.B.E., Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, 2015
- J.D., Columbia Law School, 2001, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar
- B.A., Amherst College, 1997, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
Admissions
- *Admitted only in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania; practicing law in the District of Columbia during the pendency of her application for admission to the D.C. Bar and under the supervision of lawyers in the firm who are members in good standing of the D.C. Bar.
- Massachusetts
- Pennsylvania
Certificates
Activities
- Board Chair and Corporate Secretary, Twelve Gates Arts (2011-present)
- Corporate Secretary, King’s Gift Fund (2022-present)
- Member of GC Bootcamp Cohort 2, ChIPs Network for Women in Tech, IP Law, and Policy (2023-present)
- Planning Group for Sponsored Research and Technology Transfer (2024 Fall CLE), National Association of College and University Attorneys (2011-present)
Languages
- Bengali
- Spanish
- Hindi
- Urdu
- French