Kuwabo O’Brien

Dr. Kuwabo O’Brien is an associate in the firm’s Global Trade practice. She advises clients on matters involving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the DOJ’s Data Security Program, US export controls and economic sanctions, and anti-corruption laws. Dr. O’Brien also supports trade-related due diligence in connection with mergers, acquisitions, investments, and licensing transactions. Having a background as a practicing patent attorney, Dr. O’Brien brings broad technical experience across the life sciences, including medical devices, peptide therapeutics, immunotherapy, drug and gene therapies, tissue engineering, and gene sequencing. She leverages this experience to assess complex technologies and regulatory considerations arising in cross-border transactions and other global trade matters.

Prior to joining Goodwin, Dr. O’Brien was a patent agent and technology specialist at a leading intellectual property boutique in Boston. She earned her PhD in biomedical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where her doctoral research focused on engineering scaffold-free tendon fibers and examining the effects of chemical and mechanical cues on engineered tendon fiber growth.

• Advised DualityBio on Global Collaboration and License Agreement with Genentech
• Advised Royalty Pharma in connection with a synthetic royalty financing of up to $300 million to Zenas BioPharma, Inc.
• Advised Blueprint Medicines Corporation (Nasdaq: BPMC) in its definitive agreement to be acquired by Sanofi (NASDAQ: SNY)

Some of Dr. O’Brien’s notable awards are as follows:

• CALI Excellence for the Future Award - Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic (January 2024)
  University of California College of the Law, San Francisco — San Francisco, CA
• Founders Award of Excellence (October 2017)
  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute — Troy, NY
• Best Student Paper Award (March 2017)
  International Symposium on Ligaments & Tendons XVI — San Diego, CA
• Savio L-Y. Woo Young Biomechanics Researcher Award (March 2016)
  International Symposium on Ligaments & Tendons XV — Orlando, FL
• Overall Best Teaching Assistant Award (May 2016)
  Biomedical Engineering Department., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute — Troy, NY

• Mubyana, K., & Corr, D. T. (2018). Cyclic Uniaxial Tensile Strain Enhances the Mechanical Properties of Engineered, Scaffold-Free Tendon Fibers. Tissue Engineering Part A, 24(23-24), 1808-1817
• Mubyana, K., Koppes, R.A., Lee, K.L., Cooper, J.A. and Corr, D.T. (2016). The influence of specimen thickness and alignment on the material and failure properties of electrospun polycaprolactone nanofiber mats. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 104(11), pp.2794-2800
• Chaudhary, R., Lee, M.S., Mubyana, K., Duenwald-Kuehl, S., Johnson, L., Kaiser, J., Vanderby, R., Eliceiri, K.W., Corr, D.T., Chin, M.S. and Li, W.J. (2016). Advanced quantitative imaging and biomechanical analyses of periosteal fibers in accelerated bone growth. Bone, 92, pp.201-213
• Published Extended Abstract: Mubyana, K., and Corr, D. T. (2016). Cyclic Mechanical Loading Improves Tensile and Failure Properties of Scaffold- Free Engineered Tendon Fibers. Z.-M. Li, P. Yung, D. T. Corr, B. S.-C. Fu, & S. L.-Y. Woo (Eds.), International Symposium on Ligaments and Tendons, 15, pp. 16–18. Retrieved from http://www.pitt.edu/~msrc/islt15/ISLT-XVFinalProgramBook-FULL.pdf#page=17
• Blog Post: Author – “What’s Estoppin’ You? – Beware the Barriers of Asserting Judicial Estoppel”. November 11, 2019. Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks Post-Grant Blog