Abbott is donating $1 million in funding and product donations to support storm-relief efforts. Grants will be awarded to the American Red Cross, AmeriCares, Direct Relief International and World Vets, and product donations have also been made to Direct Relief International and Feeding America. Product donations have also been supplied to food banks and free clinics in states along the east coast of the US, including New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.

Amgen and its Amgen Foundation are contributing $250,000 to support relief efforts from the recent storm Sandy, including $100,000 to Direct Relief International, a nonprofit support agency that provides medical assistance to people affected by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest. The remainder of the funding will mainly be disbursed to organizations that specifically support dialysis patients, who require timely treatment.

Eli Lilly’s Lilly Foundation has donated $200,000 to the American Red Cross for storm-relief efforts. In addition, the foundation is also contributing one dollar for every dollar donated by Eli Lilly employees to the American Red Cross or Salvation Army .

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) recently highlighted its commitment to certain global-health projects, which include its tuberculosis (TB) compound library to be made available to help stimulate research into TB, its investment in GSK’s Tres Cantos Open Lab to be doubled with an additional £5 million ($8 million) funding awarded, and allowing detailed data from GSK clinical trials to be made available to researchers to further scientific understanding and knowledge. In other news, GSK reported that the GAVI Alliance has announced that GSK’s pneumococcal vaccine, Synflorix will be introduced into the national immunization program in Pakistan.

In partnership with the Pfizer Foundation , Grantmakers In Aging (GIA), a national association of funders, has launched Community AGEnda: Improving America for All Ages, announcing five grants of $150,000 each to local groups in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, and the greater Kansas City area to accelerate their efforts to become “age-friendly or improve the quality of life for the aging population. addition to the $750,000 provided to the participating regions, Community AGEnda will use an additional $550,000 to assess and support the local efforts and inspire similar work across the country. This work includes promotional activities and the development of planning, assessment and strategy tools and other practical resources, including an online searchable database describing the growing number of age-friendly projects in the United States. The project will also gather national and regional funders to spur greater interest in age-friendly community development. On the local level, participating communities will seek to raise an additional amount equal to one-third or more of their grant in matching funds, a minimum of $50,000 each.