Associate Director, Market Access & Patient… at Ionis… · Boston

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!

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, MARKET ACCESS & PATIENT SERVICES ANALYTICS

We are seeking an intensely curious, innovative and analytically rigorous individual contributor to serve as an advanced analytics lead and trusted advisor for Market Access and Patient Services. This role sits within the Commercial Analytics & Operations. This role will help elevate the speed, agility, and quality of operational decision-making within Market Access and Patient Services teams by leading advanced analytics projects that uncover where and why patients face access barriers, quantifying the business impact of payer and channel dynamics, identifying the highest-value opportunities to improve patient access and program performance, and building self-serve analytics tools to support these functions. This person will be relied upon to bring structure and sound judgment to ambiguous business questions, often with limited or imperfect information. They will pair deep domain fluency in payer, hub, and specialty pharmacy data with modern data science methods to move the organization from describing what happened to explaining why it happened and predicting what to do next, working in close partnership with brand-aligned Commercial Analytics leads as Ionis continues to grow its commercial-stage portfolio. This role will exercise independent judgment in defining analytical approaches and recommendations, with work that materially influences Market Access and Patient Services strategy and broader commercial decision-making.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategic Insight & Decision Analytics

• Scope and lead deep-dive analytics projects that surface strategic opportunities across the access and patient services landscape — e.g., quantifying how payer behaviors, utilization management, contracting decisions, and channel mix shifts impact covered demand and brand performance
• Serve as a trusted analytical advisor and thought partner to Market Access and Patient Services leadership: frame ambiguous business questions as testable hypotheses, exercise sound judgment where data is limited or imperfect, and deliver decision-ready recommendations
• Drive payer and access decision analytics, including reimbursement scenario modeling, access impact quantification of coverage decisions, and analytical inputs that sharpen contracting and pull-through strategy
• Synthesize findings into compelling, executive-ready narratives that influence resource allocation, program design, and access strategy at the leadership level, with results that inform decisions across multiple functions and may materially impact broader commercial strategy
• Help anticipate future analytical needs (e.g., evolving payer and policy landscapes, competitive entrant, new product launches) and contribute to building the frameworks and capabilities to address them

Advanced Analytics & Modeling

• Build, validate, and deploy predictive and statistical models that anticipate patient drop-off risk, time-to-therapy bottlenecks, payer policy impacts, and demand shifts, enabling proactive rather than reactive intervention
• Apply established analytical principles and introduce new methods where they add value, leveraging machine learning, segmentation, and experimental design to large proprietary datasets (SP, hub, claims, formulary) to optimize program effectiveness and forecast access trends
• Design and analyze operational experiments and pilots (e.g., program design changes, intervention targeting) to establish what actually moves outcomes, building a culture of test-and-learn
• Conduct patient journey analytics that go beyond KPI tracking — e.g., understanding free trial, QuickStart, and bridge program utilization by payer and coverage status to inform affordability strategy and gross-to-net implications

Operational Excellence

• Identify and resolve operational bottlenecks across the patient journey using data to optimize demand/capacity levels and vendor/partner performance (referral-to-start, prior authorization cycles, hub hand-offs, and specialty pharmacy pull-through)
• Analyze pull-through performance across payer accounts, specialty pharmacies, and prescriber segments, linking formulary wins to script volume, prior authorization approval rates, and SP dispense data to identify where access is theoretically available but not being realized in practice, and recommending targeted interventions to close the gap
• Engineer and automate complex data crosswalks (e.g., contracts-to-dispense mapping, SP/SD customer alignment, GPO/IDN/provider rollups) that turn fragmented data into clean, decision-grade assets and eliminate recurring manual effort
• Establish scalable, self-service reporting and dashboards ecosystems so analytical capacity is freed for higher-order strategic work
• Continuously raise the bar on data quality, payer spine standardization, documentation, and analytical reproducibility across patient services and access data assets

Leadership & Influence

• Serve as a recognized subject matter expert on patient services and access analytics, modeling strong standards for analytical rigor, methodology, and design within the Commercial Analytics & Operations team, and providing thought leadership through reusable methods and frameworks adopted by others
• Build formal cross-functional networks and strong working relationships with key internal stakeholders (Commercial leadership, brand leads, Finance, HEOR, Medical Affairs, etc.)
• Contribute to the analytics capability of the broader organization through knowledge sharing, methodological guidance, and reusable frameworks that elevate work beyond the immediate team
• Demonstrate and uphold behaviors in alignment with Ionis’ Culture and Core Principles

Cross-Functional Partnership & Data Strategy

• Partner with Market Access, Patient Services, Trade & Distribution, Forecasting, and brand-aligned Commercial Analytics leads to integrate access and patient services insight into holistic brand strategy and performance views
• Inform the data and vendor strategy for access and patient services analytics, contributing to evaluation and integration of sources such as SP data feeds, hub data, adjudicated claims, formulary databases, and patient registry data against future analytical needs, not just current reporting
• Prioritize and deliver high-impact ad hoc analyses for Market Access, Patient Services, brand, and leadership stakeholders, tailoring outputs (Excel, PPT, written narrative) to the decision at hand

REQUIREMENTS:

Education and Professional Experience:

• A typical candidate will have at least 12+ years of related professional experience (8+ years with an advanced degree); advanced degree in a quantitative discipline preferred
• 5+ years of hands-on experience delivering advanced analytics within the pharmaceutical/biotech industry – statistical modeling, machine learning, or experimentation – with demonstrated expertise in patient services, hub, and/or specialty pharmacy data environments
• Track record of analytics projects that influenced strategic or operational decisions, not just informed reporting; experience supporting analytics for one or more product launches required, multiple launches preferred
• Demonstrate comfort operating with autonomy and ambiguity, structuring open-ended problems, devising solutions from limited information, and managing competing priorities in a lean, fast-moving organization
• Recognize internally and/or externally as a subject matter expert in access and/or patient services analytics, with a track record of shaping analytical approaches and business decisions

Strategic & Communication Skills:

• Demonstrate ability to operate as a thought partner to senior stakeholders – critically interrogating data, challenging assumptions, and shaping the question as well as the answer
• Excellent interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills, with the ability to distill complex modeling and access analytics into clear, actionable recommendations and compelling narratives that drive executive decision making – frame insights as coherent story with a clear ‘so-what’ and recommended path forward

Collaboration:

• Exceptional collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively as an individual contributor and driver of alignment across Market Access, Trade & Distribution, Patient Services, brand-aligned Commercial Analytics leads, and IT

Technical and Domain Expertise:

• Strong applied experience with machine learning, statistical analysis, predictive modeling, and analytics design for operational experimentation
• Proficiency with SQL required; proficiency with at least one programming language a plus (Python or R strongly preferred); experience with distributed/big-data tooling (e.g., Spark) a plus
• Demonstrated expertise with specialty pharmacy datasets, including patient status/sub-status, dispense, hub performance, and patient affordability programs (co-pay, free drug, QuickStart/bridge)
• Strong working knowledge of market access data types: formulary/coverage databases, adjudicated claims, prior authorization and appeals data, and payer mix analysis
• Baseline understanding of access barriers, payer behaviors, contracting dynamics, patient support flows, and channel mix changes impacting covered demand
• Familiarity with building and maintaining payer spines and standardizing payer information across datasets; experience automating data crosswalks and customer mapping a plus
• Experience with real-world datasets such as medical claims, pharmacy claims, labs, and EHR data; pharmacy and medical benefit experience preferred
• Experience with Power BI, Tableau, or other data visualization tools, including dashboard development
• Familiarity with indication expansion dynamics preferred, particularly transitions from rare to broader patient populations; rare disease data management/analysis experience a plus
• Exposure to HEOR datasets, real-world evidence methodologies, or gross-to-net analytics preferred
• Familiarity with Courier Health, Claritas Rx, or other patient-oriented CRM/field force platforms as data sources preferred

Please visit our website, http://www.ionis.com for more information about Ionis and to apply for this position; reference requisition # IONIS003898

Ionis offers an excellent benefits package! Follow this link for more details: Ionis Benefits

Full Benefits Link: https://ionis.com/careers#:~:text=Highly%20competitive%20benefits

The pay scale for this position is $164,000 to $185,000

NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE. PRINCIPALS ONLY.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and all its subsidiaries are proud to be EEO employers.