Oxford University has announced a £50 million funding commitment from Serum Life Sciences to establish The Poonawalla Vaccines Research Building at the University of Oxford.

Serum Life Sciences is wholly-owned by the Poonawalla family, owners of the Serum Institute of India.

The Poonawalla Vaccines Research Building will be built on the same site as the recently announced Oxford University Pandemic Sciences Centre, on the University’s Old Road Campus.

The buildings will share infrastructure and support facilities for scientific research and academic teaching and together will form a unique hub that will significantly contribute to global pandemic preparedness and responsiveness.

The main focus of the research taking place in the Poonawalla Building will be vaccinology. This new facility will house over 300 research scientists and itself will provide the focus and scale for the University’s major vaccine development programmes allowing a rapid, productive and timely expansion of this fast-growing translational area.