Serum Institute: the son who took over at 30 and scaled to four billion doses

Serum Institute of India was founded in 1966 by Cyrus Poonawalla — a horse breeder, not a pharmacist — who saw that imported life-saving vaccines were priced out of most Indians' reach and that his stables' horse serum was a raw material of vaccine making. The Pune firm grew into the world's largest vaccine manufacturer by doses, selling inexpensive, WHO-accredited products to as many as 170 countries.

His son Adar trained for it from the ground up: 'I worked in every department — and particularly in marketing and sales and in exports, because I wanted to build the exports,' he said. In 2011, at 30, he became CEO. He kept the volume-first logic — the cheapest accredited vaccines, sold at massive scale — and pushed capacity ever higher.

The bet that defined the succession was capacity. In the two years through the pandemic the company invested around $2 billion; the completed facility doubled capacity. When Covid hit, Serum Institute scaled production for global demand and began manufacturing Covishield, the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, in India. It produced 1.9 billion doses in 2021 after committing to only one billion, and the new facility gave it the ability to produce 4 billion doses of various vaccines.

Scale made it the world's chokepoint — and a target of pressure. Covishield accounted for close to 80 percent of vaccines administered in India. In March 2021 Britain's supply of the vaccine was hit by a four-week delay to a five-million-dose Serum shipment, as India put its own immunisation programme first; the company said future supplies would depend on the situation and on India's government programme.

$2bn invested through the pandemic doubled capacity; 1.9 billion doses made in 2021 against a 1 billion commitment, with room for 4 billion.

The son kept his father's founding insight — price for the masses — which by design made Serum the highest-volume producer and the default supplier in a global emergency.

He overbuilt capacity before demand existed, so when Covid arrived the constraint was ordering, not manufacturing.

The apprenticeship mattered: a decade of working exports and sales meant the new CEO already owned the customer relationships at 30.

Putting India's programme first during the shortage cost exports but preserved the relationship with the government that the business model depends on.

A second-generation owner should pick the one metric his firm can dominate and overbuild it before demand proves out. Volume made Serum the indispensable supplier when the world panicked.

Serum Institute came out of the pandemic as the world's largest vaccine maker by doses, supplying up to 170 countries, with Covishield responsible for close to 80 percent of the vaccines administered in India and the new facility capable of 4 billion doses a year. The export delays of early 2021 — five million delayed doses rippled into Britain's vaccination timetable — showed the flip side of being the world's factory: every government wanted a claim on the capacity. The succession itself was quiet by comparison: father to son, at 30, with the son's volume bet vindicated within a decade.