Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Saka.

My guest today makes something the world really needs and needs fast.

Vaccine for COVID-19.

Adar Punawala is CEO of Serum Institute of India, one of the biggest manufacturers of vaccine by volume in the world. The company indeed does much

to justify the Indian government's boast to be the pharmacy of the world. Adar Punawala took over

day-to-day running of the business from his father, Cyril, the founder, and now a dollar billionaire

12 times over. Adar has expanded SSI further and in particular he seized

the opportunity presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. He did a production deal with AstraZeneca long before

the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine had been fully trialed and authorised for use. The gamble paid off.

Now, SSI is aiming to produce more than a billion doses over the next year.

Already the company's vaccines have been shipped to dozens of countries and will be a key

component of the international COVAX program aimed at getting vaccines to the world's poorest.

And all this is being done for an SSI charge of just $3 a dose, in line with AstraZeneca's

commitment to forgo profit for the duration of the pandemic.

But Vaccines is a sector in which SSI has already made vast amounts of money

with the potential of much more to come. Right now, they're working with big pharma companies

on a host of other vaccine possibilities, including malaria, all of which raises the question.

In this new age of pandemic awareness, does the world need to rethink how it

shares these life-saving products? Well, Adar Puna Waller joins me now from Puna, India. Welcome to

Hard Talk. Nice to be with you. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. The numbers are staggering.

You have the ambition to produce more than one billion

doses of your COVID vaccine a year. How's the plan going? Well, you know, that's exactly right.

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