Oxford University to build vaccines hub with £50m donation

The new building will be on the Old Road Campus in Oxford

A new Oxford University vaccine research building will be built following a £50m donation from an Indian-based vaccine developer.

It will be in the new base for the Jenner Institute, which produced the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

Serum Life Sciences donated the money, in the university's biggest-ever single gift for vaccines research.

The firm is owned by the Poonawalla family, which owns the Serum Institute of India.

Prof Louise Richardson, the university's vice-chancellor, said the building will help "ensure that we are never again caught unprepared for a global pandemic".

The Poonawalla Vaccines Research Building will include over 300 research scientists focussing on vaccinology.

It will be built on the Old Road Campus, as will the new Oxford University Pandemic Sciences Centre, which was announced in May.

Natasha Poonawalla, the chair of Serum Life Sciences, said the company was "delighted" to make the commitment to the university.

She said she hoped the facility would ensure that the university's research is taken "to the next level".

Prof Adrian Hill, the Jenner Institute's director, said the university and Serum Institute of India have already enjoyed "striking success" in developing malaria and Covid-19 vaccines and making their deployment "very cost-effective" on an "exceptional scale".

"We look forward to a wider range of vaccine activities in the future building on this generous support from the Poonawalla family," he said.