Dr Krishna and his core team at Bharat Biotech took 16 long years to make the rotavirus vaccine a reality. The vaccine costs 85 dollars in the western world, but Krishna had brought its price down to an astounding 1 dollar. The vaccines are available in 70 countries and Dr Krishna and team have 140 patents to their name. Then covid happened. The race for the vaccine started. The virus was new. No one knew what would work for sure - and everyone was hedging bets. Meanwhile, Adar Poonawalla, the billionaire CEO of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing company was in talks with Oxford and Astra for manufacturing a adenovirus vaccine. Half a dozen companies from India tried, but realistically our collective fate depended on these two men.





Gradually, the mRNA vaccines were out. It had to be tested though - initially in mice and guinea pigs and then in humans. There were numerous struggles in phase 1 and 2 trials. This was a race against time. Corona was killing people. The previous vaccine had taken long years of research. Will covaxin work? Will it be safe? Were the foremost questions in everyone’s mind. With the help of India’s virologists, they shortened the testing phase. They gave the vaccine to volunteers and in 28 days - their blood samples were taken. It was tested in a high biosafety lab with the deadly virus. If the vaccine had worked, the antibodies in the blood sample, would neutralise the virus and there won’t be any growth. To their ecstasy, the vaccine worked brilliantly. At long last, he had developed a vaccine that was made in India, but for the world. Covaxin was born.


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