Adar Poonawalla, who emerged as the face of India's vaccine manufacturing prowess in the drive against COVID-19, was on March 31 conferred the award for Outstanding Business Leader of the Year at CNBC-TV18's India Business Leaders Awards (IBLA) 2022.
Serum Institute of India (SII), under Poonawalla’s leadership, played a key role in India's vaccination drive against COVID-19, and also supplied the jabs to countries around the world.
"As chairman of Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker, Adar Poonawalla has been at the forefront of expanding Serum's global footprint to 140 countries...Nearly 90% of the total supplies of COVID-19 vaccine in India are from Serum’s stable. He has been instrumental in getting new products licensed and pre-qualified by WHO," read a note issued by the award organisers.
Congratulations to @adarpoonawala for winning the Outstanding Business Leader of the Year at the 17th India Business Leader Awards. #LeadersOfChange #CNBCTV18IBLA #IBLA @StanChartIN #HindustanTimes pic.twitter.com/0hHvJw4T9r— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18News) April 1, 2022
The jury of IBLA 2022 took note of SII investing in Covishield -- the India-manufactured version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine -- on an "at-risk" basis in March 2020, when coronavirus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
In around nine months, Covishield cleared regulatory hurdles and was successfully released in the Indian market for mass inoculation. Over 1.25 billion doses of the vaccine have been produced in India since the approval was granted, the jury pointed out.
The jury also considered the fact that SII, with Poonawalla acting as the key decision-maker, not only supplied vaccines to the Indian government but also to low- and middle-income countries globally under WHO's COVAX framework.
Apart from Covishield, Serum Institute has also received approval for producing Covovax, the made-in-India version of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by American biotechnology firm Novavax.
Poonawalla has also been lauded by the health fraternity because SII's crucial supplies of polio and measles vaccines to low- and middle-income countries did not stop despite the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Pune-based company, in this period, also expanded its focus on programmes aimed at developing vaccines against the papillomavirus, the IBLA jury members noted.
