Global Access to Medicines – General Internship

Public Citizen on a rolling basis accepts applications for internships at its Washington, D.C. – Dupont Circle office.

Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines group works with partners worldwide to improve health outcomes and save lives, through use of pharmaceutical cost-lowering measures including generic competition. We support civil society groups and public agencies with analysis and technical assistance to help overcome patent-based and other drug monopolies. We work to expand access to affordable medicines in the U.S. Our work challenges Big Pharma’s economic and political power. See: www.citizen.org/access.

We are looking for well-organized interns to work closely with the director on a number of coalition building, analysis and research projects to improve public policy and expand global access to medicines.

Issues include, but are not limited to:

• “Free trade” agreements
• Compulsory licensing of pharmaceutical patents
• Leveraging US Government-funded biomedical research
• Anti-falsification/counterfeiting policy
• Description (responsibilities vary according to the intern’s prior experience):
• Maintain and improve program website and social media communications.
• Research policy, legislative and regulatory issues.
• Communicate with partners worldwide.
• Draft memos or external materials.
• Make recommendations and collaborate on team projects.
• Participate in conferences and report back on relevant meetings taking place in Washington.
• Support the Program Director as needed.

Qualifications:

• Commitment to public interests including public health.
• Excellent research and writing skills.
• Proficiency in computing and/or social media preferred.
• Foreign language skills, especially Spanish, helpful, but not required.
• Subject matter experience with access to medicines, patents, public or global health, law, medicine, cancer, HIV/AIDS, pharmaceutical economics, biotech helpful but not required.
• Applicants interested in intellectual property and related issues more broadly are encouraged to apply.
• Organizing or campaigning experience helpful but not required.

How to Apply:

Public Citizen internships are available year round. Our internships are up to 40 hours a week for around eight weeks.  **We accept unpaid internship applications on a rolling basis and currently are accepting applications for paid internships for Summer 2024.**

Public Citizen offers unpaid internships (credit can be arranged) and a small number of paid internships ($17 an hour).  To be considered for a paid internship for Summer  2024, candidates must apply by March 25, 2024, and submit materials listed below.  Chosen applicants will be notified on April 15, 2024.

If you are applying for a paid internship, please include an essay outlining why you want to intern at Public Citizen and any other information about you that you wish to have considered, including your need for financial support (500 words or less). If you have completed the FAFSA, please also submit a copy of your Student Aid Report (SAR).

Applicants should send a note of interest, resume and one or two writing samples to medsaccess@citizen.org with “internship application” and the time period for which you’re applying in the subject line. The note of interest may be in the body of an email (attachments are also fine), should be quite brief, and should indicate the applicant’s chief interests and availability (full- or part-time and dates).  Writing samples should be five pages or less and may cover any subject. We prefer writing samples which have not been edited by anyone other than the applicant. If this is not the case, please include a note saying so. No phone calls please. Women, people of color, and multilingual speakers are encouraged to apply.