The Story of India's largest Vaccine maker ' Serum institute of India PVT. LTD.

 From stables to laboratories

The Story of India's largest Vaccine maker

When Cyrus Poonawalla Began his career

It was 1966, Indian businessman Cyrus Poonawalla, who was born into a family of horse breeders, wanted to diversify the family business. Cyrus Poonawalla owned one of the leading stud farm in India and had decades old ties with horse racing. Yet he saw no future in his family business he wanted his own unique and creative business that is last long, and gave his success that he want from the beginning.

At the time, retired horses of the farm were sent to a government owned institute for vaccine production. But that time one question came in his mind "how did horses have anything to do with vaccines?"

It turns out a horse's serum is an integral component in vaccines for a few diseases, including tetanus. The word 'Serum', means a clear liquid derived after separating blood. 

Naturally, when Cyrus Poonawalla realized the potential market for the vaccine, he set out to creat a manufacturing hub of his own company. Cyrus Poonawalla began extracting horse serum and producing vaccines on a large quantities. And with small investment of $12,000 he launched the Serum institute of India (SII)

SERUM INSTITUTE OF INDIA PVT. LTD.

(Cyrus Poonawalla group)

"We reach more children than Coca-Cola and PepsiCo can ever hope to", this word said by Cyrus Poonawalla, while taking pride in thier supply chain. Serum institute of India now holds the title for the world's largest vaccine maker by the number of doses produced and sold. SII supplies an estimated 1.5 billion doses on an annual basis to 170 countries.

Currently Serum institute of India is the frontrunner in India's Covid Vaccine race, It is in an argument with AstraZeneca to produce over a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses for low and middle income countries. The stupendous growth can be attributed to its efforts of constantly scalling up capacity. Cyrus Poonawalla went ahead to become 6th Richest man in India in 2020 and countines as the chairman of Serum institute of India.