Initiative to improve children's medicines branches out to Africa

A Cambridge research organization created to improve the safety of pediatric medicines has won a grant to tailor medicines for children in Africa.

The Institute for Pediatric Innovation has received $550,000 from the World Health Organization to "make medicines child size," according to the institute. The research will be conducted with Unicef in Tanzania and other African countries. The goal is to develop children's medicines and dosing guidelines for such diseases as tuberculosis.

The institute was founded by former Children's Hospital Boston technology-transfer executive Donald Lombardi and is headed by Dr. Stephen Spielberg, the former dean of Dartmouth Medical School. Its five-year Pediatric Pharmaceutical Reformulation Program builds on the growing recognition that children are not just a smaller version of adults who can safely take reduced doses of drugs.

Five US children's hospitals are partners in the institute's efforts: The Children's Hospital, Denver in Aurora, Colo., Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif., and Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo..