Adar Poonawalla is betting big that his family's Serum Institute of India will be among the first to produce Covid-19 vaccines
AstraZeneca launched advanced clinical trials for tens of thousands in Brazil, South Africa, the UK and the US, while Serum Institute started its own trials with 1,600 volunteers across India and dedicated three of its facilities to begin production of more than 60 million doses monthly of the vaccine—with plans to ramp up to 100 million doses by December. Trials in several countries, including India, were briefly halted, then resumed, after an unexplained illness in one patient in a UK trial in early September.
Despite that hiccup, on October 26, AstraZeneca said that its vaccine produced a robust immune response in adults and the young, raising hopes about the vaccine’s potency, and a subsequent rollout soon. Serum Institute has already manufactured 40 million doses of the vaccine, under an at-risk manufacturing and stockpiling licence from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI)
“We could have launched the vaccine early next year if the trials hadn’t been stopped. That has really put a wrench into the works,” says Poonawalla, estimating the trials could now extend to January. “We’re trying everything we can to make up for lost time.”
He’s also hedged his bets by developing other Covid-19 vaccines. “We are working with multiple partners across the US, UK and Europe on four different vaccine candidates,” he says. “We never assumed that only one vaccine candidate would work. Vaccine production is like a roller coaster ride with all sorts of probable results; you just need to be patient until the final result is out.”
Cyrus Poonawala
Image: Sanjit Das Bloomberg via Getty Images
(This story appears in the 20 November, 2020 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)