PAHO Consultant - Quality Control Laboratories and the Laboratory Testing Regulatory Function

OBJECTIVE OF THE OFFICE/DEPARTMENT This is a requisition for employment at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) Contractual Agreement: Non-Staff - International PAHO Consultant Job Posting: September 10, 2026 Closing Date: September 20, 2026, 11:59 PM Eastern Time Primary Location: Off Site Organization: IMT Innovation, Access to Medicines and Health Technologies Schedule: Part time PURPOSE OF CONSULTANCY Provide specialized technical cooperation to strengthen national and regional quality control laboratories (QCLs) for medicines, vaccines, and other health technologies within the framework of the WHO Global Benchmarking Tool (GBT), contributing to improvements in regulatory maturity, the development and implementation of Institutional Development Plans (IDPs), and the articulation of regional initiatives on reliance, capacity-building, and laboratory networks — in alignment with CSP30.R12 and PAHO's BWP Outcome 2.3.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES: TERMS OF REFERENCE International Consultancy (IPC) Band C Regional Consultant on Quality Control Laboratories and the Laboratory Testing Regulatory Function Contract period: 1 November 2026-31 October 2027 Work modality: Remote, with occasional travel within the Region of the Americas as required Duty station: Remote — candidates must be based in the Region of the Americas Hiring entity: Department of Innovation, Access to Medicines and Health Technologies (IMT), Quality and Regulation Unit (IMT/QR) 1.

Background The Department of Innovation, Access to Medicines and Health Technologies (IMT) is responsible for promoting, coordinating, and executing PAHO's technical cooperation to improve equitable access to health technologies, including pharmaceutical products, vaccines, medical devices, diagnostics, and other products, working in an interprogrammatic manner and in collaboration with key partners.

The Quality and Regulation Unit (IMT/QR) provides technical cooperation to strengthen the regulatory systems capacity for health technologies through the promotion of international standards, support to countries in regulatory capacity assessment processes, institutional development planning, and human resources competency building. The Unit also promotes regulatory harmonization and convergence in the Region through the Secretariat of the Pan American Network for Drug Regulatory Harmonization (PANDRH), leads regional technical networks and working groups, and provides technical support to the PAHO Regional Revolving Funds on quality assurance and risk management.

This consultancy is part of PAHO's sustained regional efforts to strengthen national and regional quality control laboratories (QCLs) for medicines, vaccines, and other health technologies. Functional and well-resourced QCLs are a cornerstone of national medicines regulatory systems, generating the analytical evidence needed to support marketing authorization decisions, pharmacovigilance, and post-market surveillance, including verification of product quality across the supply chain.

In addition to providing technical and scientific input before and after marketing authorization, national QCL staff may also contribute to clinical trial authorizations, participate in regulatory inspections, support the analysis of vigilance data, and provide technical advice for national lot release. Despite significant progress in the Region, strengthening laboratory regulatory capacity remains one of the most technically complex areas of regulatory systems development, requiring specialized expertise, adequate infrastructure, robust quality management systems, and progressive pathways toward international recognition.

As part of its mandate to support the evaluation and strengthening of national regulatory authorities (NRAs) in the Region, PAHO uses the WHO Global Benchmarking Tool (GBT) as the standard methodology for regulatory systems assessment. The Laboratory Testing (LT) funct