Britain's biggest drug manufacturer has launched a new partnership with Save the Children to develop medicines to tackle child mortality in Africa. GlaxoSmithKline and the charity said together they could save a million children's lives. Save the Children chief executive Justin Forsyth said there was the potential for "huge gains". The charity admitted that its alliance with GlaxoSmithKline would be controversial. However, it said, the benefits would be massive. For example, a formula for mouthwash…

A dose of competition is sometimes what's required to get life-saving medicines and other needed products to urban slum dwellers and the rural poor. Drugs to treat malaria, for example, are a recurring necessity in towns like this one east of Kampala. Uganda has an estimated 478 cases of malaria per 1,000 people per year, one of the highest rates in the world. Infections are treatable with the right drugs, so-called artemisinin-based combination therapy, or…