Adar is the son of Cyrus Poonawalla, who founded the Serum Institute of India and is the world’s largest vaccine maker. Adar is Serum’s CEO, and under him the company has invested $800 million to build a new factory to make Covid-19 vaccines. Serum has multiple Covid-19 vaccine partnerships and has launched Covishield, the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. He is also associated as a board member of the GAVI Alliance, which is the Global Vaccine Alliance. He initiated and launched Serum Institute’s Oral Polio Vaccine in 2014, which addressed a global shortage of Polio vaccines at that time, and every year plans to launch a new vaccine for public health starting 2017. His wife, Natasha, Executive Director of Serum Institute of India, also serves as Chairperson of Serum Life Sciences, a newly-established business focused on developing, producing and supplying pandemic vaccines, and works on creative and business strategy for Cyrus Poonawalla Group companies.

In 2011, Adar founded the Villoo Poonawalla Foundation, in memory of his late mother Mrs. Villoo Poonawalla, which today comprises of 6 schools, 1 hospital, 25 water plants at different locations, 250 trucks and machinery picking up and processing waste in and around the city of Pune. His vision is to help address the inequality that exists in India, and around the world, in the focused areas of: Healthcare, Education, Water, Sanitation and the Environment. In 2015, he also set up the Adar Poonawalla Clean City Initiative (APCCI) which is a first of its kind Public-Private-People Partnership towards efficient and scientific waste management. Natasha is Chairperson of the Villoo Poonawalla Foundation, and has helped lead the foundation to improve lives through a focus on increasing education, healthcare, safe water and environmental sanitation. The Foundation invests in a wide range of social projects to help advance the life outcomes of underprivileged communities in India, including establishing its own schools to provide much-needed education, and investing in clean drinking water and a large-scale sanitation program in the city of Pune.

Adar is the recipient of many business and philanthropy awards from CNBC TV18, CNN TV18, Economic Times, Hurun and many others, to name a few in the recent past. He was also listed as one of the 50 most influential young Indians by the GQ Magazine and also was awarded Philanthropist of the year in 2016. Natasha serves as the Director of the Poonawalla Science Park in Netherlands, she is Chair of the British Asian Children’s Protection Fund for India, and is a member of the British Asian Trust’s India Advisory Council. Passionate about business, philanthropy, fashion and design, Natasha holds an M.Sc. in Organisational Behaviour from the London School of Economics.