United States Pharmacopeia is recruiting expert volunteers from academia, industry, regulatory and healthcare to develop, revise and approve medicine, dietary supplement and food ingredient standards and solutions used in more than 150 countries to improve global public health. The volunteers will serve from 2025 to 2030.
Volunteers make significant contributions around the world, and the ones who donate their time and expertise to United States Pharmacopeia (USP), a nonprofit organization that establishes public quality standards and solutions for medicines, dietary supplements and food ingredients globally, are no exception. These independent experts from academia, industry, regulatory and healthcare collaborate to develop, revise and approve USP standards and solutions that help improve public health worldwide.
For example, volunteers from the 2020–2025 cycle have helped ensure the quality of medicines, dietary supplements and food ingredients by:
- Building a toolkit for identifying deadly contaminants in allergy, cold and cough medicines
- Creating a new dissolution performance verification standard
- Developing mRNA vaccine quality draft guidelines
- Supporting national regulatory authorities in more than 25 countries and over 50 manufacturers through its USAID-funded Promoting the Quality of Medicines Plus (PQM+) work
- Publishing final versions of revised compounding chapters
Making such contributions is a key reason people apply to be expert volunteers, said Shawna Embrey, vice president of compendial operations at USP, which is based in Rockville, Md. Embrey’s team manages each cycle’s volunteers and sees these groups’ accomplishments firsthand.
“It can be truly moving to see what they have accomplished—the small changes and years of dedication they bring to the table,” she said. “Even the smallest differences can have a profound impact globally.”
Debra Joy Pérez, chief equity officer at USP, has also seen that contribution. Pérez, who co-leads the organization’s volunteer recruitment process, noted that these individuals contribute to the development, review and revision of hundreds of standards each year.
“Our volunteers enjoy the satisfaction and fulfillment of knowing they are making an immediate impact on global health,” she said. “This is real. This impacts real people’s lives.”
Recruitment for Next 5-Year Cycle Going Strong
To continue this important work, USP is recruiting for its next five-year volunteer cycle, which runs from 2025 to 2030. The first step is filling its Council of Experts, which oversees the organization’s scientific and standards-setting decisions. Each council member will chair one of USP’s 28 expert committees and will elect those groups’ members.
Expert committees are responsible for developing and revising USP standards that are part of the nonprofit’s compendia: the USP-NF, the USP Compounding Compendium, the Herbal Medicines Compendium, the Dietary Supplements Compendium and the Food Chemicals Codex. Expert panels will supplement these groups, providing additional expertise on specific compendial topics. The panels will generally continue until their assigned task is completed.
USP is accepting applications for its Council of Experts—the chair positions—through December 2024 and for committee members through March 2025. Chairs will be elected by May at USP’s Convention Meeting, and members will be confirmed in the summer of 2025.
USP leadership hopes to double the number of applicants for the 2025–2030 cycle compared to the 2020–2025 cycle, according to Edna Choi, the organization’s senior director of documentary standards operational excellence. Choi, who co-leads the volunteer recruitment process, noted that for the first three months of the current recruitment window, USP received 60% of the total application volume it had during the last cycle.
USP Applies Equity Equals Excellence Philosophy to Volunteers
According to Pérez, the applicant pool for the 2025–2030 cycle represents around 60 countries, which is notable given that in the past, 90% of the organization’s volunteers have resided in the U.S. USP leadership wants its expert volunteers for the next cycle to truly reflect the global population of people who are served by USP’s standards.
The organization’s DEIB strategy is rooted in a simple foundation, according to Pérez: Equity equals excellence.
“We believe in the value of diverse perspectives and in the social scientific literature, which demonstrates that more heterogeneous groups are better problem solvers, collaborate more, have better decision-making processes and are more innovative and creative than homogeneous groups,” she said.
To help promote DEIB within the expert volunteer recruitment process, Choi noted that USP is encouraging everyone who’s motivated to be a volunteer and has the expertise to be a volunteer to apply.
“We encourage everyone who is qualified to apply because we want to ensure that our volunteer base really reflects the diversity of communities that we serve, both within the U.S. and globally,” she said.
Mrunal Jaywant, vice president of R&D at USP - India, shared that she hopes the next volunteer cycle will include more India-based professionals. Jaywant, who is involved in volunteer recruitment and lives in India, said the organization has historically had fewer volunteers from that country, despite India’s booming and diverse pharma ecosystem.
“We have very senior pharma professionals who are based out of India, so we would like to leverage their knowledge and expertise and have more representation from all qualified candidates in India, especially including women,” she said.
Volunteer Benefits Include Sense of Purpose, Networking
For the individuals who become USP expert volunteers, the benefits are numerous. Choi noted that when she asked those who’ve been part of multiple cycles what brings them back, the answer has been quite consistent.
“They always talk about how purposeful they feel being an expert volunteer for USP,” she said. “And they get to meet a lot of other experts. So, for them, it’s a true opportunity to develop themselves, further their expertise and interact with some of these experts that maybe they have read papers authored by them but never met them in person.”
Choi also noted that volunteering is beneficial because individuals can interact with regulators since government liaisons sit on expert committees.
“Most of our liaisons are from FDA, so I think it is a great networking and learning opportunity,” she said.
USP Executives Find Work on Volunteer Efforts Rewarding
As prospective volunteers continue applying for the 2025–2030 cycle, the USP executives responsible for volunteer recruitment and engagement are enjoying their involvement with the program. For example, Choi is excited that the organization is now using its applicant tracking system to collect applications and that the forms themselves are streamlined and the time to complete them has been reduced by 90%.
Jaywant and Pérez shared that they find recruitment rewarding. Pérez noted, “Our focus and our goals around more global representation is important to our recruitment effort and to USP’s success serving a truly global patient population.”
Embrey has enjoyed working with the volunteers themselves during their five-year cycles.
“They are truly just amazing people—the things that they’ve done, the contributions that they’ve made,” she said.
Interested in becoming a USP volunteer? Apply here. If you have questions about the USP expert volunteer program, you can email uspvolunteers@usp.org to reach the volunteer engagement team.
This article was written in partnership with United States Pharmacopeia.
