Billionaire Horse Breeder’s Polio Shot to Undercut Glaxo

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Indian billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, founder of the world’s biggest maker of vaccines, will slash the price of polio immunization and introduce shots for diarrhea and pneumonia, undercutting Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc. (GSK)

Poonawalla, who set up the Serum Institute of India Ltd. in 1966, will use last year’s acquisition of a Dutch vaccine business to add the injectable form of polio inoculation to the oral drops the Pune, India-based company supplies to organizations such as the United Nations Children’s Fund, he said. The closely held group also plans to sell a low-cost pneumococcal shot to compete with Pfizer’s $4 billion Prevnar pneumonia vaccine by 2016.

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek (link opens in a new window)

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Health Care
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public health