Adar Poonawalla: The Vaccine Prince of Pune

IN 2015, as billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates spoke of the need to be more worried about an epidemic than a war in his TED talk, a young man listened intently. It implied that though much was invested in nuclear deterrence, very little had been pumped into containing an epidemic. That was the turning point in the life of Adar Poonawalla, who four years prior to Gates’ TED talk, had taken charge as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer. “That talk by Gates changed my perspective. That’s when I started thinking bigger in terms of capacity building and advance planning. While other drug makers plan six months ahead, we started planning four to six years in advance,” he says. At that time, neither Gates nor Poonawalla had anticipated what was coming five years later.

By March 2020, as the coronavirus swept across the world, Poonawalla’s life changed, almost overnight. The world, unprepared for the pandemic, pinned its hopes on a vaccine. Soon the global spotlight was on the Pune-based institute. He realised that the world was counting on him to deliver. He was confident that Serum Institute would be able to manufacture large volumes of Covid-19 vaccine doses. As pressure mounted, Poonawalla’s days got busier, often going beyond midnight. He waited for the first vial to arrive from Oxford, England. Those were tense times. He checked with his logistics team every three to four days to find out if the vaccine had come. It landed in May after all the clearances. “As soon as it came, there was excitement, celebration and relief,” he recalls. That was the first milestone that Serum Institute of India crossed.

In March-April when Poonawalla took the call to mass produce the vaccine, he had no idea if his plans would succeed. The vaccine, Covishield (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19), being developed by the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, was unproven. It was a gamble.

Poonawalla calls it a calculated bet. “It was a commitment we made towards protecting lives. If I had waited till November, that is now, we wouldn’t have seen the vaccine till the end of next year. We would have lost countless numbers of lives had I not taken that risk.”

“It was a commitment we made towards protecting lives. If I had waited till November, that is now, we wouldn’t have seen the vaccine till the end of next year. We would have lost countless numbers of lives had I not taken that risk”

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Today, he is confident and pleased about decisions he took around six months ago. Covishield was the frontrunner among around 150 vaccine candidates being developed across the world. For Poonawalla, the most unforgettable moments during the pandemic were when he signed partnerships with AstraZeneca for Covishield and Novavax for Covovax for the development and commercialisation of their Covid-19 vaccine candidates, besides the backing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for 100 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine for India and low and middle-income countries at not more than $3 each. “We chose the vaccines based on science and merit,” says Poonawalla. Serum Institute is preparing doses for five different SARS-CoV-2 vaccines— Covishield (AstraZeneca), Covovax (Novavax), Covivaxx (Serum Institute), Covi-Vac (Codagenix Inc) and SII Covax (Serum Institute).

Serum Institute is churning out 10,000 doses a minute in its existing facilities dedicated to Covid vaccine in the current situation, freezing all other projects for the time being. The capacity will soon reach 100 million doses a month, a volume that is usually generated annually. A new facility, coming up at the Serum Institute complex spread over nearly 200 acres, will produce a billion doses with an investment of over $300 million. Serum Institute needed an overall investment of $800 million for the project, of which it pumped in $300 million of its own resources and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, via its Strategic Investment Fund, provided at-risk funding of $300 million to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in partnership with Serum Institute. The institute, a family-run business estimated to be worth $13 billion, plans to raise the remaining amount internally. “The collaboration between Gavi, the Serum Institute, and the Gates Foundation supports the efforts of the ACT-Accelerator’s COVAX pillar to accelerate the development of vaccines for COVID-19 and ensure that they are available to everyone who needs them in a timely manner. The collaboration aims to accelerate the manufacturing timeline and ensure that lower- and middle-income countries can get low-cost, safe and effective vaccines as soon as possible,” says Hari Menon, Country Director, India, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Poonawalla, who recently figured in Fortune magazine’s list of 40 influential people below the age of 40, is aware of the risk he is taking. If the vaccines fail, it is the family money on the line. A privately listed company, founded by his father Cyrus in 1966, it neither has bank loans nor is answerable to anyone outside. “Funds will not come in the way of production,” he assures. Once the vaccine sells, the cash flow will take care of further manufacturing. As days go by, Poonawalla is feeling more sanguine. He is hopeful of getting the government clearances by December when the trials are expected to be completed, and launch the vaccine by January. The process could speed up if the UK shares data about its safety, and the Indian Government explores a possible emergency licence.

Today, Poonawalla is one of the most sought-after persons in the world. “That’s an overstatement. But yes, some people feel that way. It’s a nice compliment, but one that comes with immense responsibility. I am sought after to provide the vaccine. That puts a lot of pressure and I am trying to live up to the expectations,” he says. Managing expectations has been a challenge. Initially, he was flooded with calls from heads of states. He explained to them that the vaccine will be distributed equitably and the process will take time. It is up to the Government how to prioritise the distribution.
Big challenges still lie ahead. One of these is distribution of the unprecedented volumes of doses to different parts of the states of the country and the rest of the world, besides handling and storing them at required temperatures. The Covishield vaccine, which is to be given in two doses in a gap of 28 days, has to be administered by doctors. Even if the vaccine is launched in January, the rollout could take a couple of months in India.

“The biggest hope now is that the vaccine provides long-lasting immunity. Without that we will not have won the battle against the virus. It should give proper protection and not just half-protection,” he says. As part of the alliance with Gavi and Gates Foundation, Serum Institute will deliver 200 million doses of AstraZeneca-Oxford and Novavax vaccines in 67 and 92 countries, respectively.

Years before the coronavirus surfaced, Poonawalla had anticipated that the demand for vaccines would keep growing and got Serum Institute to start building capacity. Many of his critics were of the view that it was unnecessary and excessive. When Poonawalla had returned to India in 2001, after spending 10 years in the UK, he had several options before him. “There were so many things I could have done. But there is nothing more satisfying than saving lives, specially of children. My passion was to develop new vaccines for diseases causing deaths.” He worked in several departments of the company, including marketing, sales and supply chains, picking up the ropes of the business. One of the first things on his mind was to widen Serum Institute’s global footprint. At that time, it was catering to around 20-30 countries. Giving a push to exports as he travelled extensively, he expanded the business to 147 countries.

“The biggest hope now is that the vaccine provides long-lasting immunity. Without that we will not have won the battle against the virus. It should give proper protection and not just half-protection”

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He launched several new vaccines for preventable diseases as he took over as CEO a decade later, a position which was held by his father who made affordable vaccines his mantra when he launched the company. Cyrus Poonawalla had inherited stud farms from his father Soli. They sold retired racehorses to a government institute in Mumbai, which used them to develop antibodies and use their serum for treatments. Cyrus realised this was something they could do themselves. There was a demand-supply gap. When the vaccine sales picked up, he imported state-of-the-art machines from the US and Europe to enhance production. Serum Institute produced vaccines for several diseases, including polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, Hepatitis-B, measles, mumps and rubella, saving millions the world over. Cyrus was awarded the Padma Shri for his work in medicine in 2005, the same year he was bestowed the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The company, which employs around 5,000, has annual revenues of close to a billion dollars. Over the past decade, the revenues of Serum Institute, which provides at least one vaccine to 65 per cent of the world’s children, have been soaring.

Cyrus, now 75, gave his son Adar a free hand in expanding Serum Institute’s reach abroad. He too, driven by the philanthropic philosophy, kept in mind the core motto to make vaccines available at affordable prices. He has brought down global prices by more than half and launched many new vaccines like the rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines, and now multiple Covid-19 vaccines which are under clinical trials. In 2012, he, along with his wife Natasha, founded the Villoo Poonawalla Charitable Foundation in memory of his late mother, Villoo, to address education, healthcare and sanitation. Today, 500 km of roads, half the city of Pune, is covered by 250 trucks and 450 full-time employees picking up and processing the city’s waste. He wants to do here what is done in the US and Europe and convert waste to energy.

As Adar Poonawalla, himself a board member of the Gavi Alliance, awaits the launch the vaccine, Covishield trials are back on track. The stage III clinical trials resumed in October after a pause due to an “unexplained illness” in a test subject in the UK. “I will take the Oxford vaccine shot myself and put out a video to inspire people,” he says. The world is waiting for that moment.

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Amita Shah