# GSK and Save the Children launch third $1 million Healthcare Innovation Award

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2015/07/15/gsk-and-save-the-children-launch-third-1m-healthcare-innovation-award/
- Published: 2015-07-15T11:05:44+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

For the third year pharmaceutical and healthcare company GSK and Save the Children
are offering a $1 million Healthcare Innovation Award to reward innovations in healthcare
that have helped to reduce child deaths in developing countries.

Organisations across [developing countries](http://data.worldbank.org/country) are
invited to nominate their own innovative health approaches that have:

• resulted in tangible improvements to under-5 child survival rates

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• are sustainable

• and which have the potential to be scaled up and replicated

The [Healthcare Innovation Award was announced](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/2013/06/27/1-million-award-healthcare-innovations-reduce-child-deaths/)
following the launch of [GSK and Save the Children’s new partnership](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/2013/05/11/gsk-and-save-children-medicine-and-research-partnership/)
in May 2013, which aims to save the lives of 1 million children in some of the world’s
most vulnerable communities.

## Developing country health systems

This year there is a special focus on innovations that aim to strengthen developing
country health systems and have proven to help increase access to public healthcare
for pregnant women, mothers and children under five.

Ramil Burden, vice-president for Africa and Developing Countries at GSK, said:

> “Robust healthcare systems are the backbone of thriving communities but too many
> countries still lack the trained health workers and facilities they need to manage
> everyday health challenges, let alone crises like the catastrophic outbreak of
> Ebola. Through this year’s award, we hope to identify and support those innovations
> that are most effectively helping to strengthen health systems so that mothers
> and children are better able to access the care they need, when they need it.”

The judging panel is co-chaired by Sir Andrew Witty, CEO of GSK, and Justin Forsyth,
CEO of [Save the Children](http://www.savethechildren.org.uk), and is made up of
experts from the fields of public health, science and academia.

As well as providing funding, this year’s Healthcare Innovation Award will provide
a platform to review and evaluate new approaches to health system challenges, to
recognise those that are having an impact, and share their learnings with the wider
global health community.

## 2014 winners

Last year’s top prize was awarded jointly to the **University of KwaZulu-Natal**(
UKZN) in South Africa and **ColaLife** in Zambia. UKZN developed a project to promote
life-saving breast feeding for vulnerable premature babies including a mobile phone
app to aid the safe pasteurization and storage of donated human breast milk.

ColaLife’s project adapted the supply chains used to get soft drinks and other consumer
goods to remote areas to deliver a specially tailored diarrhoea treatment kit for
infants. Both organisations were awarded $350,000 to take forward their work.

Entries to the 2015 [Healthcare Innovation Award](http://myg.sk/Save-HealthcareInnovationAward)
close on **7 September 2015** at 11.59pm.

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