Sandoz to provide UN with antibiotics to combat child mortality

Sandoz has announced it will be supplying a key antibiotic formulation to assist the UN's new Every Newborn Action Plan.

The company has pledged to provide long-term global supplies of amoxicillin 250 mg dispersible tablets to developing countries via the UN Commission for Lifesaving Commodities, as part of a wider goal to bring down rates of child mortality.

Launches in Johannesburg, the Every Newborn Action Plan is the world's first comprehensive strategy to eliminate preventable deaths of newborn and stillborn babies. More than five million children under five are estimated to die worldwide every year.

Amoxicillin is a penicillin-class broad-spectrum antibiotic, commonly prescribed to children for the treatment of pneumonia and other illnesses, including bacterial infections of the ears, sinuses, throat, urinary tract, skin, abdomen and blood.

Nick Haggar, head of western Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Sandoz, said: "We are committed to working in partnership with all concerned to help prevent the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of children every year."

The firm is the second-largest generics player in the world and outperformed the market in all regions in 2013.