He certainly doesn’t complain about the noise when opportunity knocks.
Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla wedged his way back into the spotlight this week with a carefully-worded, single-sentence tweet: “At the right valuation, @RCBTweets is a great team”. By all accounts, Poonawalla is the front-runner to snap up IPL team and 2025 season winner Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) from the team’s current owner United Spirits, a subsidiary of global beverage giant Diageo.
The 44-year-old University of Westminster, London, graduate, has an impeccable record of placing great bets.
Serum Institute took a bold step
In 2020, after the world had gone through a whole year of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns and social distancing were de rigueur, the Serum Institute of India (SII) partnered with the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford to manufacture the Covid-19 vaccine originally designated AZD1222 and popularly known as Covishield. It was a calculated risk — SII began to manufacture the vaccine before clinical trials were fully completed. The decision ensured a faster rollout if the trials proved successful.
If they didn’t, it also meant that SII would be sitting on a stockpile of dud products — and billions in losses.
But Poonawalla didn’t think twice. In a 2021 interview he said it was an easy decision – one he made in consultation with his then 78-year-old father, Cyrus. “Because we’re privately listed and not accountable to investors and bankers and shareholders, it was just a quick five-minute chat between myself and my father,” he had said.
When the coronavirus struck, SII — which happens to be the world’s largest vaccine-producing company in the world’s largest vaccine-producing nation — was already manufacturing vaccines for measles, tetanus, diphtheria, hepatitis and many other diseases. The firm specialises in generic versions, exports to close to 200 countries and estimates that about two-thirds of the world’s children are inoculated with its vaccines.
Poonawalla’s 2020 gamble paid off handsomely. SII’s revenue shot up from Rs 5,446 crore in fiscal year (FY) 2020 to Rs 25,645 crore in FY22, a nearly fivefold jump. Profits skyrocketed — they rose from Rs 2,251 crore in FY20 to Rs 11,116 crore in FY22.
Poster boy of COVID-19 pandemic
And Adar Poonawalla became the poster child of India’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
As expected, that market vanished in two years. In FY24, SII’s revenue slumped to Rs 9,549 and profits to Rs 4,278 crore.
Though the numbers were still better than those posted in the pre-pandemic years, they spurred Poonawalla to diversify—from launching a bunch of fresh vaccines and refocussing on its pre-Covid pipeline of malaria, HPV etc, to venturing into unrelated categories like finance and film production.
In May 2021, Poonawalla’s Rising Sun Holdings acquired a controlling 60% stake in Magma Fincorp, which was incorporated in 1978, for close to Rs 3,500 crore. The company was then rebranded Poonawalla Fincorp, marking its entry into the non-banking finance sector.
In two years, he was ready to double his investment in Biocon Biologics committing $150 million, bringing his total investment to $300 million.
Poonawalla Rs 1,000 crore foray into Bollywood
Then in 2024, Poonawalla picked up a 50% stake in film maker Karan Johar’s production company Dharma Productions and its digital arm Dharmatic Entertainment for about Rs 1,000 crore. Poonawalla said he didn’t expect significant revenue from films, it was more of a “passion-driven” move. He had known Karan Johar and his team for years and the goal was to tell powerful stories—like Kesari 2 on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre—and build distribution and intellectual property over time.
A key focus area in his vaccine play is also to build SII’s own IP and reduce dependence on partnerships. Owning the technology gives the firm more control and further its sustainability goals, he has said.
SII is currently working on vaccines for mosquito-borne diseases—dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya. These will be rolled out over the next two to three years. SII is also looking to expand into Europe and the US, markets that it hadn’t traditionally served.
If accolades are a barometer for achievement, Adar Poonawalla has little to complain about. He has bagged many plaudits over the years, most recently being Fortune’s Greatest Leaders (2021). He was the winner of the Forbes India Leadership Award for GenNext Entrepreneur and and CNBC Asia’s award for Corporate Social Responsibility (both in 2018), and was annointed Indian of the Year – CSR Category (2020). He also has Economic Times Entrepreneur of the Year (2021), Hurun National Icon of Philanthropy (2019) awards in his bag.