Dr. Abhijit Barve is the President R&D for Biocon since Nov 2011. He was the Chief Operating Officer of Clinigene International Limited, a Biocon subsidiary considered to be amongst India’s premier Clinical Research Organizations (CRO) for 18 months. Prior to joining Clinigene he was with Astellas Pharma Inc in Deerfield, IL, USA. Abhijit has over 15 years of global drug development experience covering preclinical, early and late stage clinical development, clinical operations, regulatory and safety functions. During this timeframe, he has filed at least a dozen IND applications and has led the team that successfully negotiated the original and expanded labeling for Vaprisol. He has extensively interacted with various divisions of the FDA and also with EMEA and PMDA. At Astellas, he headed their Global Cardiac Safety Task Force. His clinical trial experiences span across the globe, where he has successfully managed diverse global teams in a highly matrix organization across multiple therapeutic areas.Abhijit joined Fujisawa Research Institute of America as Asst. Medical Director in 1999 and was Medical Director at Astellas Pharma (formerly Fujisawa) until 2008. In 2008, he became Senior Director, Business Development at Astellas responsible for strategic, financial and scientific assessment of business opportunities in the areas of CNS, Pain and Oncology. In 2009, he returned to Astellas R & D as Global Development Project Leader accountable for overall development for CNS programs, the position he held until he left Astellas in 2010. He is member of multiple prestigious scientific organizations.Abhijit trained at LTM Medical College and Seth G.S Medical College & KEM Hospital, Mumbai where he received his MBBS and MD degrees in 1992 and 1995, respectively. He subsequently received his PhD from Dept. of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago in 1999 where he evaluated hemoglobin based oxygen carriers as therapeutic agents. In 2007, he received his MBA in Finance, Entrepreneurship and Strategy from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, where he was on the Dean’s Honors List and was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society for outstanding academic achievement.