It was in 2011, shortly after assuming the role of CEO of the Serum Institute of India (SII), that Adar Poonawalla set out to double the capacity of what is now the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume. Initially motivated by economies of scale, Poonawalla, whose father Cyrus founded the company, made a series of decisions that would put his company in a position to offer India its best hope for a coronavirus vaccine, both in terms of how much and what. price. the country could get shots.
“Shortly after taking office in 2011, I started working to double our capacity. He not only wanted to generate layoffs, but he also wanted to prepare for a pandemic-level event, ”the businessman said at the 18th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Thursday.
The focus on building massive capacity for a pandemic, which the world faces for the first time in a century, began with a now-famous Ted talk from Microsoft founder-turned-philanthropist Bill Gates. “I wanted to prepare for a pandemic-level event since I heard Bill Gates say in a Ted talk that we should probably be more concerned and spend more money on this type of threat than on nuclear or space programs,” he said.
Also read: ‘Children may be the last in line to have access to the Covid-19 vaccine,’ says Adar Poonawalla at HTLS 2020
In the summer of 2020, Poonawalla and his team became the first pharmaceutical companies to commit to producing billions of doses of vaccines even before they were shown to be safe or effective. “I felt it was my moral responsibility to make the decision then because if I didn’t, countless lives would be lost next year,” he said, referring to the IBS agreement for the production of 1 billion doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate. which was announced on June 5.
Since then, the company has announced agreements with two other US firms Novavax and Codagenix.
“Because if I made the decision now at this stage where we know the vaccine is going to produce good results, we will have lost six months of hundreds of millions of doses that would then be available at the end of the year instead of at the beginning,” he said .
The decision, he added, involved elaborate risk calculations. “We had no choice but to take a chance early, gamble and commit so that no lives are lost. We made a scientific decision to select the partners that we did, ”he said.
What followed was a period that Poonawalla described as stressful. “It was stressful and we were working at a record pace, obtaining equipment and manpower in record time,” he added.
Currently, two of the company’s facilities produce between 50 and 60 million vials of the vaccine each month. “We are planning to do around 100 million doses per month, which we expect in February. Right now there are two facilities dedicated to this and for January or February there will be two more facilities that are currently in the validation process, “he said.
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Final production will be split 50-50 between India and the Covax Facility, a non-profit deal run by the World Health Organization to distribute vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.
Poonawalla said the company also has an agreement for vaccine doses, and several other governments have reached out. “Covax serves all of Africa, which is 2 billion people. We don’t want to take too much of it and keep India a priority, ”he said, adding that the company had not yet committed to any other nation as such.
All three vaccines work on different platforms, increasing the chances of success in terms of efficacy and safety. Poonawalla, the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca have said they expect critical efficacy results from the UK-made candidate vaccine to arrive within the next 2-3 weeks.
The efficacy results will pave the way for the vaccine’s developers, Oxford and AstraZeneca in this case, to pursue what is known as an emergency use license. This will allow it to be handed over to healthcare workers and vulnerable people, and the general public permit is expected to be in another three to four months, Poonawalla added.
See also: ‘Every 4-5 months, a new vaccine’: IBS CEO on India’s ‘priority’
According to Poonawalla, the SII is now working on a “pandemic-level facility that can handle any pathogen or platform.” The project involves an investment of 3 billion rupees and will add another 1 billion doses in production capacity once it goes online in two years, he added.
He reflected on what the role of the company in the fight against the pandemic meant to his father, who founded it in the late 1960s. “When he founded the company, he never imagined it would reach the level it is now. I was just trying to address the huge vaccine shortage that existed at the time when India was dependent on imports, “he said.
“Seeing this happen in your life is the best reward you could have imagined, for all the hard work you put in,” said Poonawalla, describing the early days of the company as a struggle against bureaucracy, lack of funding and talent.
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