GlaxoSmithKline and Save the Children recently honored the latest Healthcare Innovation Award recipients.
+ Technology/Innovation
Jamie Barrand | Feb 24, 2016

GSK, Save the Children announce Healthcare Innovation Award winners

The winners of the third annual Healthcare Innovation Award, sponsored by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and England's Save the Children, have been announced.

Save the Children is a London-based international non-governmental organization that promotes children's rights, in addition to providing relief and support for children in developing countries.

The Healthcare Innovation Award event contributes $1 million worth of funding toward projects that innovators in developing countries are working on to reduce the mortality rate of children under the age of five.

The largest portion of the funding -- $400,000 -- went to Immreg, a project from Vietnam that will establish a paperless immunization records system.

“The Healthcare Innovation Award funding will enable us to take Immreg to another level, expanding functionality to improve nutrition and protecting even more children from vaccine-preventable disease,” Mona Byrkit, the project's program leader, said.

Other winners included the Pratt Pouch, a foil pouch to accurately measure HIV medications being administered to newborn babies in Ecuador ($226,600); Operation Karibu, an integrated care package in Kenya for new mothers and their babies ($176,600); and Child PIP, an audit tool developed in South Africa that will enhance understanding of children's deaths ($176,600).

GSK and Save the Children entered into a five-year partnership in 2013.

“When we embarked on our partnership -- and the Healthcare Innovation Award -- we set out to identify brilliant ideas, born in developing countries, which are helping to save children’s lives,” Lisa Bonadonna, head of the GSK-Save the Children partnership, said. “These latest inspiring innovations are doing that by strengthening health care systems and improving access to health care for mothers and children in some of the most underserved communities. We look forward to seeing them scale up and share their fantastic ideas, as previous winners have already gone on to do.”

Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, director of program policy and quality at Save the Children and a member of the award judging panel, agreed.

“This year’s Healthcare Innovation Award applicants have once again demonstrated the best solutions for complex problems are often created by people affected by or closest to the problem,” she said. “The pioneering health care solutions that the panel selected are already helping to save children’s lives in communities. I am confident that through the recognition and funding from this award, these winning innovations can be replicated to help make a bigger impact for the world’s most vulnerable children.”

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