- Monday, May 19, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
SERUM Institute of India (SII) has pledged £50 million to the University of Oxford for establishing a research campus that would also house the institute behind the AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 jab, Reuters reported.
SII is the world’s largest vaccine-manufacturer.
The university on Wednesday (15) said the investment was made through Serum Life Sciences Limited, a unit of SII. The research facility would be named after SII’s billionaire owners – the Poonawalla family, Reuters added.
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The pledge is backed by a collaboration between Oxford University, AstraZeneca and SII, which produces the version of the British duo’s vaccine shot for countries that are economically modest.
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SII, which is based in the Indian city of Pune in the western state of Maharashtra, has also agreed with Jenner Institute, which was behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, to produce and develop Jenner’s R21/Matrix-M malaria shot on a big scale. The jab is currently in the later stage of trials.
SII was founded in 1966 by Cyrus Poonawalla, the son of a horse breeder and one of the top 10 richest persons in India, according to Forbes. In 2019, he received an honorary degree from Oxford University.
Poonawalla’s son Adar is the chief executive officer of SII now while the latter’s wife Natasha Poonawalla heads Serum Life Sciences.
In September, the billionaire family invested £50 million in Oxford Biomedica to help develop a plant which manufactures Covid vaccines.
