The Poonawalla Group’s Serum Institute of India (SII) has partnered with British drug maker AstraZeneca (AZ) to supply one billion doses of University of Oxford’s preventive potential coronavirus vaccine candidate to low and middle income countries, according to news reports. "To begin with, by this year end both companies have committed to provide 400 million doses," noted The .jpg)
Economic Times (ET) on June 4, 2020. Reportedly, the manufacture of the experimental vaccine would commence mid-June. "The significance of the partnership is that if all goes according to plan, millions of Indians will get their hands on Covid-19 vaccine shots produced by SII well before the end of 2020," noted a financial website moneycontrol.com. The University had recently announced the start of trials "in about 10,000 adult volunteers," noted ET. "We are delighted to partner with AZ in bringing this vaccine to India," SII chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla was quoted in the ET report. The Indian company is the world’s largest producer of vaccines by volume. The firm was founded by Adar’s father Dr Cyrus Poonawalla, the 165th richest man in the world, according to the Forbes magazine listing of the most affluent.
"It’s a huge personal risk I am taking," Adar told Forbes on June 4. "But it’s a risk I can take because we aren’t a listed company… I am afraid to even calculate that figure (of losses on manufacture of an unproven vaccine) so I can live in self-denial of the many millions of dollars that I may have lost," he said. "But again, I’m only accountable to myself." The company has reportedly "put on the backburner another project to produce antibodies. That opportunity, Adar reckons, could cost him millions of dollars," according to the news report.
"I will leave it to the government to decide on whom to vaccinate first," Adar told Forbes. Admitting that he expects the government to purchase the vaccines for mass inoculation, he said, "We are not asking for any money for dedicating a Rs 700 crore manufacturing plant, including the manpower, energy cost, and other things from the government. All we are saying is buy the vaccine and give it free to everyone so that no citizen of India has to pay for a Covid-19 vaccine...
View of manufacturing facility at the Serum Institute of India; above: Adar (inset) and Dr Cyrus Poonawalla
"We are working with multiple partners across the US, UK, and Europe on four different vaccine candidates," Adar told the magazine. "These include Codagenix (see "Combating corona," Events and Personalities, Parsiana, March 7-20, 2020), Themis, and the remaining two we can’t talk about at this stage. We never assumed that only one vaccine candidate would work. Vaccine production is like a rollercoaster ride with many probable results; you need to be patient," Adar told Forbes.