Jakarta –
A man from India is said to be able to end pandemic COVID-19. The man is Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India (SII).
Not without reason, the man who was nicknamed the ‘Prince of Vaccine from India’ has made a considerable contribution to making a COVID-19 vaccine, one way to end the pandemic.
He was committed to making millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, which at the time was still uncertain. Adar is willing to spend millions of dollars into its manufacturing facilities in India.
At that time, the vaccine made by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca (AZN), is still in clinical trials. No one is sure how long it will take for a vaccine to develop, let alone whether it will work.
“It was a calculated risk,” said Poonawalla. But I didn’t see a choice at the time, to be honest. I just feel sorry if I don’t do it one way or another,” Adar told CNN.
To make his plan work, Poonawalla first had to raise nearly $1 billion. In addition, SII has also promised to provide vaccine supplies to poor countries.
If it succeeds, Adar will save countless lives and be hailed as a hero during the COVID-19 pandemic period.
Before long, his plans came to light. The clinical trial was successful and AstraZeneca received approval from UK regulators in December 2020.
To prepare for production of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, Adar said he spent US$800 million buying chemicals, glass bottles and other raw materials, as well as increasing production capacity at his plant in the western Indian city of Pune.
The Adar family charted an unusual path to become one of the world’s leading vaccine makers. They have been breeding and racing purebred horses since the 1940s, diversifying into pharmaceuticals, finance and real estate over the last half century.
But the path is not always smooth. The third wave of COVID-19 in India makes SII doubt its ability to produce vaccines on a large scale.
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