![]() This was while India was under a national coronavirus lockdown, as the pandemic exploded. ![]() ![]() Serum's scientists scrambled to mass-produce it anyway. Vials with the vaccine pass through a visual screening machine that checks for any deficiencies in the vaccine substance or bottling. So it took four days to get permission," explains Suresh Jadhav, 71, the Serum Institute's executive director.Ĭredit: Viraj Nayar for NPR. "And in those days, the telephone lines were not working great in India. Those government officials were about 100 miles away in what was then known as Bombay. The Haffkine lab had a supply of anti-venom serum but needed government officials to grant permission to administer it. In 1966, a snake bit one of the Poonawallas' horses. In the 1960s, they used to donate some of their retired racehorses to a government biomedical laboratory called the Haffkine Institute, which used the horses' blood to develop serums and vaccines. In addition to horses, they collect luxury cars too, including a Batmobile replica the CEO had outfitted for his young son.) ("Wealthy" may even be an understatement. ![]() The Poonawallas are a wealthy family of racehorse breeders. Since 1946, the property has been a stud farm – and part of it still is. Look out the window on the Serum Institute's high-tech campus, and there are dozens of reminders of the company's very different past: horses. and Japan, and logistical help from Australia, to help another Indian producer called Biological E mass-produce the U.S.-developed Johnson & Johnson vaccine. On Friday, the White House announced an agreement to bolster India's COVID-19 vaccine production by another billion doses. Last week, India's vaccine prowess won financial backing from the so-called Quad countries – the United States, Japan, Australia and India – a group that often works together to try to counter China's influence. Poonawalla says it was an easy decision – one he made with his 78-year-old father, Cyrus. If they didn't, Serum would end up with useless vaccines - and hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. If these vaccines did prove effective, Serum would already have hundreds of millions of doses stockpiled, to start shipping out. And that was before clinical trials proved any of them would work. Sanjit Das (photo of Cyrus Poonawalla) and Dhiraj Singh (photo of Adar Poonawalla)/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesĪdar Poonawalla, 40, told NPR last June that he decided to invest tens of millions of dollars in glass vials alone and produce four different coronavirus vaccines, including the Oxford-AstraZeneca one. All it took to take a big pandemic gamble was a 5-minute dinner table conversation. Despite its global scope, it remains a dad-and-son business. Cyrus Poonawalla (left) and his son, Adar, are the founder and CEO, respectively, of the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer.
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