As Covid-19 wreaked havoc around the world last year, the 39-year-old son of an Indian billionaire was laying the groundwork for a plan he hoped would eventually end the pandemic. Adar Poonawalla — the CEO of Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's largest vaccine maker — pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into his Indian manufacturing facility and committed to make millions of doses of a then-unproven coronavirus vaccine.
That vaccine, created by Oxford University and AstraZeneca (
AZN), was still in clinical trials at the time. Nobody was sure how long a vaccine would take to develop, let alone whether it would even work.
"It was a calculated risk," Poonawalla told CNN Business. "But I didn't see the choice at that time, to be honest. I just felt I'd regret not committing one way or another."
