Case Study: Ionis Pharmaceuticals achieves paperless purchasing and doubles global supplier onboarding with Coupa Software

Ionis Pharmaceuticals expands its Coupa footprint and doubles the number of suppliers worldwide

Ionis Pharmaceuticals, a leader in RNA-targeted drug discovery, faced growing pains as rapid expansion and the Akcea spinoff drove invoice and supplier volumes up sharply. Its Procure-to-Pay team struggled with manual, paper-intensive processes, heavy paper-check usage, poor payment visibility, and the need to onboard roughly 1,500 new suppliers annually across multiple countries.

Ionis deployed Coupa Business Spend Management—including Supplier Information Management and Coupa Pay—integrated with its ERP to digitize supplier onboarding, purchasing, payments, and reconciliations. The change handled invoice volume growth (13,000 to 30,000), routed over $200M and 96% of invoices through Coupa, raised on-time payments to >85%, cut requisition cycle time from 19 to 3 days, and virtually eliminated manual payment work while improving supplier relations and controls.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals

Carrie Albrant

Former Director of Accounting