Cyrus Poonawalla on Globalization

Poonawalla cites recent export milestones: just that week Serum had exported six million COVID doses to Australia and three million to New Zealand, with an American-subidiary contract to supply 100 million doses to those two markets and roughly two billion doses worldwide at peak pandemic. The numbers demonstrate how a private Indian company became a top-tier global public-health supplier —.

NPR opens by noting the Poonawallas — Cyrus as founder and Adar as CEO of Serum Institute — run the world's largest vaccine-producing company in the world's largest vaccine-producing nation. Serum makes vaccines for measles, tetanus, diphtheria, hepatitis and many other diseases, specializes in generic versions, exports to 170 countries, and estimates that two-thirds of the world's children are inoculated with its vaccines.

NPR notes Serum has partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and several United Nations agencies including UNICEF and the World Health Organization. By the time of the report, the company said it would ramp Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine production to 100 million doses per month by April 2021.

NPR records that by December 2020, when governments worldwide began granting emergency authorization, Serum already had hundreds of millions of doses ready to ship. The company promised half its production to the Indian government, which donated and sold supplies to about 70 countries. Serum was producing 60-70 million Oxford-AstraZeneca doses — branded as COVISHIELD —.

While Indian manufacturers like Serum partner with global pharmaceutical companies, NPR notes the Indian government simultaneously led a confrontation at the WTO, petitioning with South Africa to temporarily waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines. The idea was to lift 20-year patents and let companies like Serum manufacture generic versions quickly and cheaply.