GSK & Save the Children launch Healthcare Innovation Award

In its first joint initiative since it announced its ambitious new partnership aiming to save the lives of 1 million children over the next five years, drugs giant GSK and international children’s charity Save the Children have launched a million dollar healthcare innovation award.

From now until 26 August, organisations from across the developing world can nominate examples of innovative healthcare approaches they have discovered or implemented. These approaches must have resulted in tangible improvements to under-5 child survival rates, be sustainable and have the potential to be scaled-up and replicated.

Co-chaired by Sir Andrew Witty, CEO of GSK, and Justin Forsyth, CEO of Save the Children, the Judging Panel, made up of experts from the fields of public health, science and academia, will award $250,000 to the best healthcare innovation to further progress their work. An additional $750,000 is available for runners-up awards.

Sir Andrew Witty, ceo of GSK said: “Often the best solutions to a particular challenge come from those living and working closest to it. We recognise this and we are committed to supporting those working in the world’s poorest countries to improve health outcomes. This award will identify the most effective ideas being put into practice in developing countries and, by providing much needed funding, will enable these innovations to be scaled-up to reduce childhood deaths and will inspire others in the process.”

Winners will be announced in November 2013.

** Project Hope, a global health and disaster relief organisation, and telecoms giant AT&T are teaming up to save lives by taking on pneumonia in the developing world. Using a pioneering new technology they plan to help young children in Africa, and by going inside factories in Cambodia, treat expectant mothers on the production line.

Supported in part by a $75,000 contribution from AT&T, Hope has developed the innovative Inspire pediatric device, together with Virginia-based technology company, Guardit. INSPIRE is an electronic aid that will help health workers make swift and accurate early diagnoses of pneumonia and save lives by making an accurate reading of a child's breath count – a key indicator of the condition. The device works when it is placed on the chest of a child, and uses a patent pending algorithm.

In Cambodia, Hope's HealthWorks is providing women with affordable and accessible quality health services inside five textile factories. Thousands of women work in Cambodia's textile factories sewing goods usually destined for the West. The HealthWorks program brings crucial health knowledge directly to women at work and establishes crucial connections to external health care services for women strained by the demands of factory work and young children.