Summer Intern | Business Development

Position: 2026 Summer Intern | Business Development
Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, and with offices in Boston, Massachusetts, and Dublin, Ireland, Ionis has been at work for more than three decades discovering medical breakthroughs that have redefined life for people with serious diseases. We're pioneers in RNA-targeted medicines, and our platform continues to revolutionize drug discovery and transform lives for patients with unmet needs. With multiple marketed medicines and a leading pipeline in neurology, cardiology and select areas of high patient needs, we continue to drive innovation in RNA therapies in addition to advancing new approaches in gene editing to provide greater value to patients and are well positioned financially to deliver on our strategic goals.

At Ionis, we pride ourselves on cultivating a challenging, motivating and rewarding environment that fosters innovation and scientific excellence. We know that our success is a direct result of the exceptional talents and dedication of our employees.

With an unprecedented opportunity to change the course of human health, we look to add diverse individuals, skill sets and perspectives to our exceptional team. We continue to invest time, money and energy into making our onsite, hybrid and remote work environments a place where solid and lasting relationships are built and where our culture and employees can thrive.

We're building on our rich history, and we believe our greatest achievements are ahead of us. If you're passionate about the opportunity to have meaningful impact on patients in need, we invite you to apply and join us. Experience and contribute to our unique culture while you develop and expand your career!

Business Development

Summary:

Across the biopharma industry, business development (BD) teams serve as a unique, cross-functional window into the external landscape. Companies like Ionis leverage external partnerships to bring more drugs to patients than they otherwise might be able to on their own. The Ionis Business Development team has always looked for ways to leverage external partnerships to complement Ionis' portfolio.

The Business Development Intern will support the Ionis Business Development team through two areas of focus.

The first area of focus for this internship will be to generate BD ideas for Ionis by (1) mapping current and future core capabilities across our portfolio; (2) identifying potential disease areas and end markets that we could enter or better serve; and (3) providing recommendations to develop internal assets/technologies or acquire rights to external assets/technologies.

A secondary area of focus for the internship will be to improve the transaction process by (1) reviewing the current market for key transaction terms and (2) designing systems to better organize the transaction process

The intern will have multiple opportunities to meet leaders across the organization, attend BD meetings, and present their work to the BD and alliance management (AM) leadership. Projects the intern will work on will have direct impact on business development strategy and inform ongoing negotiations

Responsibilities:

* Conduct market research across a range of topics, which may include the current standard of care for diseases, identification of potential therapeutic ideas for diseases enabled by emerging platform technologies, clinical-stage asset landscapes, or analyses of public contracts

* Design systems to improve the BD/AM transaction processes, which may include knowledge repositories, reference documents, executive presentation templates, transaction post-mortems, or workflow tools

* Monitor market and industry trends

* Review prior deals, transaction terms, and contracts to identify patterns, benchmarks, and potential best practices that can inform BD negotiations

* Synthesize findings into summaries, presentations, or frameworks

Expectations:

The Business Development Intern is expected to bring strong analytical skills, intellectual curiosity, and a foundation in scientific training.

The intern should be comfortable working with complex and sometimes ambiguous information, across a variety of disciplines, and be able to structure research findings into logical outputs.

Experience in corporate/business development, investment banking, hedge funds, or the biopharma industry is welcome but not required. This role is designed for candidates who are eager to learn how scientific insight is translated into business decision-making in a biopharma context.

The intern is expected to demonstrate:

* Coachability, intellectual flexibility, and resourcefulness

* Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment

* Logical and quantitative thinking, with the ability to quickly learn new subject matter

* Clear written and verbal communication skills

Program Highlights:

* The program is designed to complement a student's undergraduate and/or graduate studies with relevant, hands-on industry experience

* Ionis offers paid positions

* Weekly stipend (for onsite interns only)

* Professional Networking

*…