AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV), a United States-based pharmaceutical company, announced on Wednesday that it has appointed Roopal Thakkar, MD as its new executive vice president, research & development and chief scientific officer.

In the new role, Dr Thakkar is to head the firm's global R&D organisation of over 14,000 team members across all phases of discovery and development, including therapeutics and aesthetics. He is also responsible for the six major R&D centres of excellence located across the United States, Germany and Japan.

He has served at Abbott/AbbVie in 2003 as part of the Physician Development Program. He has served in various positions in clinical development, including group project director, immunology and vice president, global regulatory affairs, where he was responsible for driving regulatory submissions to health authorities around the world. He has completed training in internal medicine and was a clinical fellow at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.