Maria E. pasquale, esq.

Senior Legal Advisor

Maria Pasquale has spent her lifelong interest in science and the law by working with scientists and biotech companies focused on cancer and other serious diseases. Currently, she is a senior legal advisor for a biotech investment company. Prior to this role, Pasquale was the executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Incyte Corporation, a leading global biopharmaceutical company that develops and markets drugs for cancer and other diseases, with operations in the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

Pasquale was previously at Celgene Corporation (2001-2017). She spent seventeen years on the executive leadership team in various roles including as an executive vice president overseeing global legal and compliance departments. She helped Celgene grow from a start-up to ten thousand employees with 40 operating offices throughout the world before it merged with Bristol Myers Squibb. 

Prior to Celgene, Pasquale was an Intellectual Property Lawyer at Pennie & Edmonds LLP (now Jones Day LLP). She was a research scientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and the Institute of Basic Research. Pasquale holds a BS in Biochemistry from Stony Brook University and a JD from Brooklyn Law School as a Dean’s Merit Scholar. 

She is a member of Stony Brook’s Women’s Leadership Council. Pasquale was the 2024 Commencement speaker at Stony Brook’s Biochemistry and Biology Convocation.