How to Apply to Ionis Pharmaceuticals

8 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 3 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Ionis runs UKG Pro Recruiting at recruiting.ultipro.com/ISI1000ISIS — the legacy ISIS in the URL is the original company name, not a misconfiguration.
  • Wainua (eplontersen, with AstraZeneca) and Olezarsen launches make 2025 and 2026 the most commercially active period in Ionis history; expect heavy hiring across cardiology field force, medical affairs, and patient services.
  • Spinraza royalties from the Biogen partnership generate roughly $400M+ per year in cash that funds internal R&D — the company is not financially fragile in the way pre-revenue biotechs typically are.
  • Carlsbad, California is the gravitational center of the company; remote roles exist primarily for field-based commercial and medical affairs functions, not for R&D bench work.
  • Founder Stanley Crooke remains chairman emeritus and scientifically active; CEO Brett Monia is a 30-year platform veteran — leadership continuity here is a feature, not a transition risk.
  • Be wary of recruitment scams; Ionis publishes a guide on identifying fake job ads and warns that legitimate offers never come via WhatsApp, Telegram, or unsolicited messaging apps.
  • The science culture rewards depth over breadth — chalk talks are real evaluations and 'I do not know' is a valid, often respected, answer.

About Ionis Pharmaceuticals

Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IONS) is the original architect of antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) medicine. Founded in 1989 by Dr. Stanley Crooke as Isis Pharmaceuticals (renamed in 2015 after the terror group made the original name untenable), the company has spent more than three and a half decades turning a single chemistry platform into approved therapies that did not exist anywhere else in pharma. That patience is the company's signature. While most biotechs raise, sprint, and pivot, Ionis kept refining one modality through three generations of chemistry until it could reach the brain, the eye, the liver, and tissues that small molecules and antibodies cannot. Today the company operates from a Carlsbad, California headquarters with a satellite office in Cambridge, Massachusetts that houses parts of the executive and commercial leadership team. Headcount sits around 1,000 employees, the vast majority in San Diego North County, and English is the working language across both sites and the international rare disease commercial footprint. The product portfolio reflects three eras of the platform. Spinraza (nusinersen) for spinal muscular atrophy, marketed by partner Biogen, remains one of the great rare disease commercial stories and continues to throw off royalty revenue north of $400 million per year that funds internal pipeline work. Tegsedi (inotersen) and Waylivra (volanesorsen) opened the door for ATTR amyloidosis and familial chylomicronemia syndrome and were originally commercialized through Akcea Therapeutics, the affiliate Ionis spun out in 2015 and re-acquired in full in 2020. The recent transformation came in 2023 to 2025 with two events the company plans to be remembered by: the launch of Wainua (eplontersen) for hereditary ATTR polyneuropathy with partner AstraZeneca, and the approval of Olezarsen for familial chylomicronemia syndrome. Wainua and Olezarsen mark the moment Ionis stopped being a platform-and-partnerships story and started becoming a fully integrated commercial-stage biotech with its own cardiology and rare disease sales force. The pipeline behind those launches is dense: donidalorsen for hereditary angioedema, zilganersen for Alexander disease, plus follow-on cardiometabolic and neurology programs built on partnerships with Biogen, AstraZeneca, GSK, Roche, Pfizer, and others. Brett Monia, a 30-year platform veteran, became CEO in 2020. Stanley Crooke continues as chairman emeritus and remains an active scientific voice. The combination matters when you interview here: leadership knows the chemistry, knows the science history, and has very little patience for talk that is not tied to evidence.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Start at ionis

    Start at ionis.com/careers and click through to the UKG Pro job board at recruiting.ultipro.com/ISI1000ISIS — this is the only authoritative posting source, and Ionis specifically warns about fake recruiter scams, so do not trust roles posted on third-party message boards or via unsolicited WhatsApp or Telegram messages.

  2. 2
    Read the Is Ionis Right for You PDF that the careers page links to before submit

    Read the Is Ionis Right for You PDF that the careers page links to before submitting; it is essentially a self-selection document and recruiters expect that candidates who proceed have aligned with the values it describes (mission orientation, scientific rigor, patient focus).

  3. 3
    Create a UKG Pro candidate account (it is separate from Workday, Greenhouse, and

    Create a UKG Pro candidate account (it is separate from Workday, Greenhouse, and other ATS accounts you may have); use a personal email you check regularly because UKG status emails sometimes route to spam.

  4. 4
    Tailor the resume to the specific job code rather than uploading a generic CV

    Tailor the resume to the specific job code rather than uploading a generic CV — Ionis hiring managers frequently mention seeing the same resume submitted to a research scientist role and a clinical operations role, which immediately signals a candidate is not serious about the function.

  5. 5
    Expect an initial recruiter screen within one to three weeks for active reqs, lo

    Expect an initial recruiter screen within one to three weeks for active reqs, longer for posted-but-pre-approved roles; recruiters at Ionis tend to be technical enough to ask first-pass science or domain questions rather than only logistics.

  6. 6
    Plan for a multi-stage process: recruiter screen, hiring manager call, then a pa

    Plan for a multi-stage process: recruiter screen, hiring manager call, then a panel that for scientific roles includes a chalk talk or job talk, and for commercial and G&A roles includes case-style exercises and cross-functional partner interviews.

  7. 7
    For research and development roles, prepare a 30 to 45 minute scientific present

    For research and development roles, prepare a 30 to 45 minute scientific presentation; you will be asked to defend experimental design choices, statistical assumptions, and what you would have done differently — Crooke-era scientific culture treats this as a real evaluation, not a formality.

  8. 8
    References are taken seriously and called late in the process; Ionis is a small

    References are taken seriously and called late in the process; Ionis is a small enough biotech ecosystem that San Diego cluster references will often be cross-checked through informal back channels in addition to the formal calls.

Resume Tips for Ionis Pharmaceuticals

recommended

Lead with platform-relevant experience: oligonucleotide chemistry, RNA biology,

Lead with platform-relevant experience: oligonucleotide chemistry, RNA biology, GalNAc conjugation, lipid nanoparticle delivery, antisense or siRNA design, or any modality (PROTACs, mRNA, gene editing) that demonstrates fluency in the broader nucleic acid therapeutics conversation.

recommended

Quantify clinical and translational impact in regulatory language Ionis recogniz

Quantify clinical and translational impact in regulatory language Ionis recognizes: IND-enabling work, NDA and BLA contributions, FDA and EMA interactions, advisory committee experience, REMS design — these terms surface accurately in UKG Pro keyword parsing and signal seriousness to scientific reviewers.

recommended

For commercial roles, specify rare disease and cardiology experience explicitly,

For commercial roles, specify rare disease and cardiology experience explicitly, including disease-state launches, payer access for ultra-orphan therapies, KOL development, and field medical or MSL coordination; Ionis is staffing the Wainua and Olezarsen launches with people who have done this exact work before.

recommended

Name the partnership context if relevant: candidates who have worked on Biogen,

Name the partnership context if relevant: candidates who have worked on Biogen, AstraZeneca, GSK, Roche, or Pfizer collaborations — from either side — get extra interviewer attention because Ionis lives in alliance management every day.

recommended

Include publications, patents, and conference presentations (AHA, ACC, ASGCT, OT

Include publications, patents, and conference presentations (AHA, ACC, ASGCT, OTS, AAN, MDA) with PMID or DOI; the science organization at Ionis reads them, and an unverifiable or padded list will be caught in panel interview prep.

recommended

For non-scientific functions, demonstrate biotech-specific operational depth: Gx

For non-scientific functions, demonstrate biotech-specific operational depth: GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, validated systems experience for IT and clinical roles; GAAP and ASC 606 royalty accounting for finance roles given the Spinraza royalty stream; and ESG and corporate responsibility reporting for communications roles.

recommended

Keep formatting clean and ATS-safe: single-column, no tables, no text boxes, sta

Keep formatting clean and ATS-safe: single-column, no tables, no text boxes, standard section headers (Experience, Education, Publications, Patents) — UKG Pro's parser handles plain structured documents reliably and mangles creative layouts.

recommended

Use a

Use a .docx or text-based .pdf rather than scanned or image-based PDFs; UKG Pro's resume parsing pre-fills the application form fields, and a parsing failure forces manual entry that occasionally drops experience entries entirely.

ATS System: UKG Pro Recruiting (formerly UltiPro)

Ionis Pharmaceuticals operates its careers site on UKG Pro Recruiting, hosted at recruiting.ultipro.com under the tenant slug ISI1000ISIS (a legacy reference to the original Isis Pharmaceuticals name). The job board itself is a single-page application with Knockout and React components, branded with Ionis colors and fonts but functionally identical to the UKG Pro instances used by other mid-cap biotechs and many healthcare systems. UKG Pro's parser is competent with conventional resume formats and integrates cleanly with the rest of UKG's HCM suite that Ionis uses for onboarding and HRIS, which means anything you submit lands directly in the same system that hiring managers and HR business partners review.

  • Apply through the official UKG Pro link only — recruiting.ultipro.com/ISI1000ISIS — not aggregators that scrape the board, because aggregator submissions sometimes lose attachments or fail to create a candidate profile in UKG Pro.
  • Allow third-party cookies and JavaScript for ultipro.com; the site is a SPA and degrades poorly with strict tracking protection enabled, particularly in Safari with cross-site tracking prevention turned all the way up.
  • Use the keyword search bar with disease areas (ATTR, FCS, SMA, HAE, Alexander disease) or platform terms (antisense, oligonucleotide, ASO, GalNAc) rather than generic job titles, because Ionis posts roles with internal naming conventions that do not always match LinkedIn-style titles.
  • When uploading, let UKG Pro auto-parse the resume into the application fields, then manually correct any miscategorized employment dates or job titles — about 5 to 10 percent of fields typically need a touch-up.
  • Save the application as a draft if you cannot finish in one sitting; UKG Pro sessions time out after roughly 20 to 30 minutes of inactivity and unsubmitted progress is sometimes lost.
  • Set up a job alert for the categories you care about (Research, Clinical Development, Commercial, Medical Affairs, G&A); UKG Pro sends them as digest emails, and Ionis adds new reqs in batches rather than one at a time.
  • Disable browser autofill for the EEO and self-identification sections — autofill commonly mis-maps fields here and the data is reportable, so a small data-entry mistake creates an avoidable correction loop with HR.

Interview Culture

Ionis interviews are scientifically demanding without being theatrical.

Expect interviewers to read what you wrote, push on the specifics, and value an honest 'I do not know' over a confident wrong answer. For scientific roles, the chalk talk or job talk is the central piece of the loop; the audience will include working bench scientists, not only managers, and questions will land on assay design, statistical power, off-target profiles, PK/PD, and what would change the conclusion of the work you presented. For clinical and regulatory roles, expect concrete questions about IND amendments, protocol design for ultra-orphan trials, natural history study integration, and FDA Type B and Type C meeting strategy. For commercial, medical affairs, and field roles, the loop is rare-disease launch heavy and you should be ready to talk concretely about payer access for therapies with small patient populations, KOL mapping, and the practical realities of identifying and supporting patients with diseases like FCS, hATTR, or HAE where total US prevalence is in the thousands. Culturally, the mission language on the careers page is sincere; people at Ionis come back to patient outcomes in interviews often, and candidates who can connect their work to that thread tend to advance. Behavioral questions exist but tend to be low on Amazon-style framework theatrics and high on real partnership stories — alliance management with Biogen, AstraZeneca, GSK, and Roche is part of daily life, and the interview probes for whether you can disagree productively without burning the relationship. Compensation discussions are direct and pay benchmarks against the San Diego biotech cluster (Pfizer La Jolla, BMS Bristol Myers Squibb, Neurocrine, Halozyme, Acadia) rather than against Bay Area or Boston averages.

What Ionis Pharmaceuticals Looks For

  • Modality-specific depth — antisense, siRNA, mRNA, oligonucleotide chemistry, or RNA biology fluency that lets you talk about the platform without an interpreter.
  • Rare disease and ultra-orphan launch experience for commercial, medical affairs, and patient services candidates, with emphasis on small-population access models.
  • Partnership and alliance management instincts — the ability to operate in shared-governance environments where co-development partners hold meaningful decision rights.
  • Translational research mindset for R&D candidates — comfort moving between in vitro mechanism, in vivo PK and tox, and clinical biomarker work.
  • Regulatory sophistication, particularly FDA Office of New Drugs and CBER experience for biologics-adjacent roles, plus EMA and PMDA familiarity for global functions.
  • Patient-orientation that survives a behavioral interview — Ionis hires for people who treat the patient population as the actual reason the work matters, not as a marketing line.
  • Quiet competence over performative confidence — the company's leadership sets a tone of evidence-based discussion that filters into hiring panels.
  • Long horizon thinking — Ionis is not a sprint culture, and candidates whose track record is 18-month tour-of-duty hops are scrutinized harder than the same resume would be at a pre-clinical startup.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does Ionis Pharmaceuticals use?
Ionis uses UKG Pro Recruiting (formerly UltiPro), hosted at recruiting.ultipro.com under the tenant ISI1000ISIS. The legacy ISIS slug refers to the company's pre-2015 name, Isis Pharmaceuticals.
Where is Ionis Pharmaceuticals headquartered?
Ionis is headquartered in Carlsbad, California in San Diego North County, with an additional office in Cambridge, Massachusetts that houses portions of the executive and commercial leadership team. The vast majority of R&D headcount is in Carlsbad.
How big is Ionis Pharmaceuticals?
Ionis has approximately 1,000 employees and is publicly traded as NASDAQ: IONS. The company is mid-cap by biotech standards but has the operational maturity of a much larger pharma due to its 35-plus year history.
Who runs Ionis Pharmaceuticals?
Brett Monia has been CEO since 2020 after a 30-year career inside the company on the platform research side. Founder Stanley Crooke serves as chairman emeritus and remains an active scientific voice in the business.
Does Ionis offer remote work?
Most R&D, manufacturing, and headquarters roles are on-site or hybrid in Carlsbad. Field-based commercial roles, medical science liaison (MSL) roles, and a subset of clinical operations and IT roles are remote, typically tied to a regional territory.
What products does Ionis sell directly?
Ionis directly commercializes Tegsedi, Waylivra, and Olezarsen, and co-commercializes Wainua with AstraZeneca. Spinraza is marketed worldwide by Biogen under a long-standing collaboration with Ionis.
Does Ionis have an internship program?
Yes. Ionis runs a structured intern program and a postdoctoral program; both are advertised through the careers site at ionis.com/careers/intern-program and ionis.com/careers/postdoctoral-program. The postdoc program is particularly competitive in the oligonucleotide chemistry and RNA biology areas.
How long does the Ionis hiring process take?
A typical process runs four to eight weeks from application to offer, longer for senior R&D roles that involve a job talk or for executive-level positions. Recruiter responsiveness is generally good for active requisitions.
What is the interview culture like?
Direct, scientifically rigorous, and low on theatrics. Scientific roles include a chalk talk or job talk with bench-level scientists in the room. Commercial and medical affairs interviews are heavy on rare disease launch and access scenarios.
How should I avoid Ionis Pharmaceuticals job scams?
Apply only through ionis.com/careers and the linked UKG Pro job board at recruiting.ultipro.com/ISI1000ISIS. Ionis has published guidance at ionis.com/careers/how-to-identify-fake-job-advertisements; the company does not extend offers through WhatsApp, Telegram, or unsolicited messaging platforms, and never charges fees to applicants.

Open Positions

Ionis Pharmaceuticals currently has 3 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 3 open positions at Ionis Pharmaceuticals

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Sources

  1. Ionis Pharmaceuticals — Careers —
  2. Ionis Pharmaceuticals — UKG Pro Recruiting Job Board —
  3. Ionis Pharmaceuticals — Our Leadership —
  4. Ionis Pharmaceuticals — The Ionis Story —
  5. Ionis Pharmaceuticals — Pipeline —
  6. Ionis Pharmaceuticals — How to Identify Fake Job Advertisements —
  7. Ionis Pharmaceuticals Investor Relations —
  8. Ionis Pharmaceuticals — Medicines —
  9. Ionis Pharmaceuticals — Intern Program —
  10. Ionis Pharmaceuticals — Postdoctoral Program —