Shara Avis Pecoraro

Shara Avis is the Director of International Partnerships for Ellis, a position she assumed about four to five months ago. She brings 15 to 20 years of experience in the biotech oncology field, having previously spent 13 years at MD Anderson Cancer Center in the Business Development Group and Strategic Industry Ventures. There, she connected academia with industry, helped establish the immunotherapy platform, sourced global biotechs for partnerships, and created the Cancer Focus Fund, a novel initiative for Phase 1 clinical trials that launched in 2020 and grew to a $250 million fund by 2025. Avis earned a bachelor's degree double majoring in kinesiology and psychology from Texas A&M, where she also worked as an athletic trainer. She later obtained a Master's in Healthcare Administration from Penn State in 2018, graduating with a 3.9 GPA, and a Master's in Jurisprudence from Seton Hall Law School, from which she graduated with distinction. She is a member of the Bullpen networking group and represents her company at international BioPartnering conferences while focusing on partnerships in regions including the Middle East and Australia.