Meet Adar Poonawalla, Billionaire CEO of Serum Institute, World’s Largest Vaccine Producer

When history is told in years to come about the years 2019 – 2020 and how a new disease struck, effectively shutting down the global economy, one name that will suffice is that of Adar Poonawalla. And that is because, a vaccine production research company he heads played a prominent role in rescuing the world from the grips of the global pandemic.

Adar Poonawalla is the CEO of Serum Institute of India, a family business was established by his father, Dr Cyrus S. Poonawalla. Serum Institute of India is the largest vaccine producer. Adar Poonawalla also serves on the board of the international vaccine collaboration known as the GAVI Alliance, and is the Chairman of Poonawalla Fincorp, a personal and professional solutions provider and founder of CleanCityPune, an initiative that champions sustainable environment.

Growing Up

Adar Poonawalla was born on January 14, 1981, to Dr Cyrus S. Poonawalla and Villoo Poonawalla. His mother passed away in 2010. He is his parent’s only child. Adar Poonawalla’s early education was received at The Bishop’s School in Pune, Maharashtra. He later went to St. Edmund’s School in Canterbury, where he completed his secondary education before graduating from the University of Westminster in London with a bachelor’s degree.

Adar Poonawalla’s Formative Work Experience

Adar Poonawalla began working for the Serum Institute of India in 2001 after receiving his degree from London. Poonawalla’s focus was on expanding the company’s global market reach. He obtained product licenses and qualified with the World Health Organization (WHO) to serve UN agencies like UNICEF and PAHO.

Poonawalla became the CEO of the Serum Institute of India ten years after joining the business. In 2012, a year later, the firm bought Bilthoven Biologicals, a Dutch government vaccine manufacturer. After that, Adar mainly focused on increasing the company’s global reach by exporting its products to 35 different nations. The oral polio vaccine from the Serum Institute was their best-selling product in 2014. During that same year, he had plans to make the product more available for dengue, flu, and cervical cancer patients.

Adar convinced his father to increase production when he joined SII, betting that they could close the global supply gap by producing enormous quantities of low-cost vaccinations. As a result, in 2017, SII became the largest vaccine producer in the world.

Taking Risks, COVID And A Globally Accliamed COVID-19 Vaccine

Adar Poonawalla took a risk early in 2020 when he invested in a vaccine for the novel coronavirus created by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca. With COVID-19 spreading quickly throughout the world, Poonawalla’s company began producing millions of vaccine doses in September 2020. When it was later revealed to be safe and effective, Poonawalla felt vindicated.

He reflected on his choice to invest heavily in the vaccine and said that the Serum Institute was the only business capable of such a large swing. “Who will do it if we don’t?” he asked TIME in March. “The other guys don’t have the scaling capability we possess.”

The 41-year-old CEO of the Serum Institute, Adar Poonawalla, came to be relied on by the world for his ability to produce vaccinations during the pandemic rapidly. The Serum Institute served as the foundation of COVAX, a program launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, to ensure equitable vaccine distribution. This was because its CEO promised that the organization would produce 1.1 billion vaccine doses for export in 2021. Poonawalla is better known for his expensive parties, fancy vehicles, and slick clothes than for his company’s work manufacturing vaccinations. Still, he has quickly become an important figure in the world due to his ability to produce the vaccines that are so desperately needed rapidly.

Poonawalla is trying to achieve two goals that are seemingly at odds with each other. On the one hand, he wants to create vaccines that could end the pandemic in 2020 and make history in the process. But, on the other hand, he is also trying to improve his company’s reputation after the “COVID-19 vaccination fiasco damaged it.” He told TIME in October, “We were so brutally condemned after the COVID-19 vaccination fiasco, and everyone felt it was all over. So we need this return to restore the market share and lost confidence.”

In defiance of the commercial trend set by the pharmaceutical industry, which halted the production of routine vaccines for numerous controlled infectious diseases in the West, his strategy was to continue production. While still necessary, the production of such vaccinations could be more profitable. However, due to SII’s low-cost, high-volume business strategy, as well as its long-standing collaboration with GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, SII has played a crucial role in global pediatric immunization programs – particularly in developing nations. As of early 2020, SII mass-produced 1.5 billion vaccines annually and reported that 65% of all children had received at least one of their shots. In addition, the Serum Institute, which supplies vaccines to 140 countries, increased its customer base by 400% in just two decades.

Poonawalla felt that his company had a crucial role during the outbreak of COVID-19. So while everyone else was waiting to see which vaccines would be effective, Poonawalla made two major wagers that increased his business’ exposure to the public eye. One of these worked out, while the other didn’t. Poonawalla’s first business move was in March 2020, when he used his connections to manufacture the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for low- and middle-income nations. His second move was that he could quickly scale up production to more than 100 million doses per month and ship the majority of them abroad. Unfortunately, however, the business failed to meet its production demands nearly immediately after.

Despite having had successes and failures in the past couple of years, Poonawalla continues exploring other opportunities. Another COVID-19 vaccine, created by the American company Novavax and approved by the WHO in December, is currently being produced at the Serum Institute. Additionally, Poonawalla is working on a one-dose variant of the Russian Sputnik V shot and an intranasal vaccine.

He told TIME in March 2021 that he didn’t want to look back on his decisions “when history judges my acts” before it was obvious that the world’s wager on Poonawalla was failing. In October, seven months later, he had regained his assurance and then some. Although he acknowledged that building trust takes time, he was certain that orders would rise over the next few months. He said that the Serum Institute is equipped to deliver COVAX while also satisfying India’s domestic vaccine needs. He claimed, “We have scaled up more than we promised,” and SII is eager to distribute millions of doses globally.

The Poonawalla dynasty has a promising future. Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 and the fear of global pandemics, vaccine manufacture has acquired a new status. Poonawalla claims contemporary society is “a melting pot…waiting to churn forth more dreadful illnesses.” He considers the outbreak of Covid-19 to be fortunate for us as it could have been much worse. Imagine if the ebola virus were as contagious as the coronavirus.

Awards And Recognitions

Adar has been recognized with several accolades over the years, most recently as one of Fortune’s Greatest Leaders (2021), the Economic Times Entrepreneur of the Year (2021), and the Hurun National Icon of Philanthropy (2019). In addition, Adar was also named the Indian of the Year in the CSR Category by CNBC Asia in 2020 and received the Forbes India Leadership Award for GenNext Entrepreneur in 2018.