Adar Poonawalla: A rare risk-taking CEO with strong business acumen

Adar Poonawalla's Serum Institute has tied up with AstraZeneca-backed Oxford vaccine candidate for one billion doses which it will make for India and the GAVI vaccine alliance of 58 countries

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute, believed that long-term lockdowns wouldn’t help much. Instead, the world needed a vaccine — fast.  In fact, he tweeted on March 26 (when the government announced its first “relief package” of sorts), "Given the scale of disruption a relief package of at least $200 billion should supercharge spending and restore confidence in our economy. We can recover it back through taxes as our growth rate moves beyond 6 per cent. I hope our FM announces this in phases soon.” 

But a vaccine was a sure-fire way to unlock safely