In the stables and laboratories of Pune, Cyrus Soli Poonawalla turned a family tradition of horse breeding into a global mission to protect children from disease. Born on 11 May 1941 into a Parsi family, he grew up watching his father Soli Poonawalla raise thoroughbreds. After schooling at Bishop’s School and graduating from Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce, the young Cyrus saw that many essential vaccines had to be imported at high cost. In 1966, with a modest sum raised partly by selling horses, he founded the Serum Institute of India.

“Every child deserves a healthy start, no matter where they are born,” he would later say of the vision that guided him. Starting with tetanus antitoxin and anti-snake venom, the institute soon produced DTP, measles, MMR and polio vaccines. Under his steady leadership it grew into the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, supplying affordable doses to more than 140 countries and reaching an estimated 65 percent of the world’s children with at least one of its vaccines.

He earned a PhD from Pune University in 1988 for work on improved anti-toxin technology and its social impact. Decades later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Serum Institute partnered to manufacture Covishield at unprecedented scale, helping immunise millions in India and beyond. The Government of India recognised his contributions with the Padma Shri in 2005 and the Padma Bhushan in 2022.

Today the institute he built continues under the next generation, while Cyrus Poonawalla remains a quiet force behind one of the most consequential public-health enterprises of modern times. From a small Pune start-up born of necessity to a company that has safeguarded countless lives across the globe, his story is one of vision, persistence and an unwavering belief that protection against disease should be within everyone’s reach.