Partnering Manager

About the Role Illumina seeks a Partnering Manager to drive strategic partnerships across Greater China and the broader APAC region, owning the end-to-end lifecycle from opportunity identification and deal execution through post-signature governance and value realization. You will partner with Global BD/CDx, Product, Commercial, Legal/Compliance, and regional teams to build a scalable partnership pipeline while ensuring disciplined execution, risk management, and long-term value capture.

What You'll Do

• Identify, qualify, and prioritize partnership opportunities across pharma, IVD, digital/AI, automation, cloud/data, and ecosystem players; maintain an active opportunity pipeline.
• Lead or support deal strategy, partner engagement, and commercial structuring (scope, value exchange, governance, pricing principles, milestones, and mutual obligations).
• Drive market and competitive analyses, partner landscape mapping, and strategic insights to support regional and global decision-making.
• Coordinate diligence, internal alignment, and cross-functional inputs (Product, Medical, RA/QA, Commercial, Finance) to progress opportunities efficiently.
• Support drafting and negotiation of MTAs, NDAs, evaluation agreements, OEM terms, CDx/clinical collaboration agreements, licensing, and other commercial contracts in partnership with Legal.
• Alliance Management – operationalize partnerships and realize value: define joint operating model, governance cadence (e.g., monthly working sessions, quarterly business reviews), escalation paths; build and track JBPs, ensuring deliverables, timelines, decision owners, and success criteria; drive follow-through across stakeholders.
• Monitor partner health and performance (execution, compliance, commercial progress, relationship dynamics); proactively identify risks and resolve issues.
• Manage change control, renewals, extensions, and exit/transition planning; ensure smooth knowledge transfer and continuity across internal teams.
• Coordinate partner communications and internal updates to ensure a consistent ‘one Illumina’ voice across Global–Region interfaces.
• Travel as needed to support partner engagements and key internal meetings.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree (MBA, PhD, MS) preferred.
• Typically 6–10+ years of experience in business development, strategic partnerships, alliance management, corporate strategy, or related roles in Life Sciences/IVD/MedTech/Pharma.
• Demonstrated experience in deal execution and/or alliance governance (e.g., structuring collaborations, negotiating terms, running JBP/QBR cadence, issue resolution).
• Strong cross-functional leadership and stakeholder management skills across Product, Commercial, Legal/Compliance, Medical, and Operations.
• Commercial acumen with ability to translate market needs into partner value propositions and executable programs.
• Excellent communication and executive presence; ability to produce crisp written outputs and board-ready presentations.
• Fluency in English required; Mandarin Chinese required for Greater China partner engagements (other APAC languages a plus).

Nice to Have

• Experience with pharma collaborations and/or CDx partnerships; understanding of clinical development, registration, and evidence generation.
• Exposure to multi-omics/genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, and/or clinical lab workflows; familiarity with automation and cloud/data architectures.
• Experience operating in complex China regulatory and data environments; ability to translate guardrails into practical partnering models.
• Track record of building scalable partnership ‘playbooks’ and repeatable operating mechanisms.