Associate Director, Portfolio Insights

About the Company

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience — and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio.

About the Role

The Portfolio Insights team enables AbbVie to make data-driven decisions on portfolio choices both within and across Therapeutic Areas (TAs). Core responsibilities include valuation of the internal portfolio, PTRS (probability of technical and regulatory success) assessments, cross-TA prioritization of R&D spend, benchmarking, and analytic support for annual financial business processes.

This role drives high-impact strategic projects and provides broad exposure across Portfolio Insights core capabilities. Success will position the Associate Director to transition into a longer-term focus area within Portfolio Insights based on strengths and business needs. Potential focus areas include:

• TA strategic partner: Drive value metrics and PTRS insights for one or more therapeutic areas in partnership with TA leadership.
• Cross-TA prioritization: Support prioritization and capital allocation analytics (e.g., Quarterly Portfolio Prioritization process enhancements), ensuring R&D investment is directed toward the highest-value opportunities.
• Data strategy and benchmarking insights: Advance the R&D productivity benchmarking agenda (e.g., peer comparisons) and translate findings into actionable insights for decision-makers.

Responsibilities

• Strategic initiative leadership: Drive high-priority 2026 strategic initiatives, including:
  • Enhancing the Quarterly Portfolio Prioritization (QPP) process to improve capital allocation toward areas of greatest value creation.
  • Modernizing AbbVie’s valuation methodologies to best-in-class assessment approaches, including AI/ML-driven PTRS assessment.
  • Instituting R&D productivity as a core organizational mindset through the R&D Pulse initiative and benchmarking performance versus peers.
• Cross-functional agility: Conduct ad-hoc analyses, scenario planning, and strategic projects across different areas of the portfolio at the request of leadership.
• Executive narrative development: Deliver high-impact recommendations on project value, trade-offs, and scenarios to senior leadership. Prepare actionable insights and executive narratives for the monthly Portfolio Review Forum, R&D Plan, and Financial Long Range Planning (LRP).
• Change management & capability building: Socialize the value of a data-driven approach for key decision-making across TA leadership. Build capabilities within the team and across the organization.
• Value assessment & analytics: Develop value metrics (e.g., risk-adjusted net present value (raNPV), Productivity Index) and scenario analyses to drive effective drug development decisions. Pressure-test assumptions and inputs provided by functional stakeholders (e.g., Finance, PPM).
• Democratization of data: Support efforts to deploy and improve dashboards for interrogating the R&D portfolio, exploring new use cases leveraging AbbVie’s foundational portfolio data.

Key Stakeholders

• Portfolio governance: PPM (Program and Portfolio Management), ASL (Asset Strategy Leadership).
• R&D functions: Clinical Development, Regulatory, Statistics, R&D Strategic Resourcing.
• Finance partners: R&D Finance, Commercial Finance.
• Commercial, partnering & business development: Pipeline Commercialization, Commercial Business Units, Search & Evaluation, Business Development.
• Strategic partners: Innovation, Transformation, TA Strategy.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in a scientific or business field required; advanced degree (e.g., PharmD, PhD, MD, MBA) highly preferred.
• Prior experience in management consulting, with a track record in R&D strategy or portfolio prioritization projects, strongly preferred.
• Preferred years of experience: 6+ with a Bachelor’s, 4+ with a Master’s, or 2+ with a Doctorate.
• Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills, with a deep understanding of Pharma R&D business processes, investment stage-gating, and commercial forecasting.
• Demonstrated success in fast-paced, ambiguous settings; proven track record of leading complex strategic initiatives without direct authority.
• High level of executive presence; ability to navigate different functional perspectives, challenge the status quo, and drive enterprise thinking.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability to distill complex data into clear, compelling narratives for senior leadership.
• Strong organizational and project management skills, with the ability to drive multiple workstreams simultaneously.

Benefits

• Comprehensive package including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick).
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) retirement plan for eligible employees.
• Eligibility to participate in long-term incentive programs.

Pay

The compensation range for this role is based on the job grade and may vary depending on geographic location. Individual compensation will be determined by factors such as qualifications and experience. This range may be modified in the future.