PUNE, India: The tiny clinking vials supervised by silent PPE-wearing technicians belie the excitement inside the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India, a major player in the fight against coronavirus.
Even before the pandemic, the Indian firm was a world leader in vaccines, producing 1.5 billion doses a year and inoculating two out of three children in 170 countries against diseases such as polio, mumps, meningitis and measles. Adar Poonawalla, its 40-year-old CEO, has spent nearly a billion dollars in recent years enlarging and improving the sprawling Pune campus.As a result, when the coronavirus pandemic began to sweep across the world, the company, which recorded annual revenues of more than US$800 million in 2019-20 and is debt-free, was in pole position to reap the rewards.
With Poonawalla vowing to reserve 50 per cent of Covishield stocks for the Indian market, New Delhi, which intends to immunise 300 million people by July, is engaging in a bout of vaccine diplomacy, planning to supply 20 million doses to its South Asian neighbours.
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