Scientist, pharmaceutical entrepreneur and philanthropist Professor Raymond F. Schinazi is a Bath graduate, having completed an undergraduate degree and then PhD in Chemistry after joining in 1986.

He went on to have an outstanding academic career in the pharmaceutical sector, working as a pharmacologist and virologist and establishing multiple successful biotech companies in the USA while maintaining his large laboratory at Emory University.

Most notably, his work led to the development of several antiviral drugs effective against HIV. Today around 94% of HIV patients take one of the drugs he developed. He was also instrumental in the discovery and development of drugs for Hepatitis B and a cure for Hepatitis C.

He has made a generous £2M donation as part of the establishment of Bath's new Department of Life Sciences, with the Department’s Head, Professor Philip Ingham FRS, becoming the first holder of the Raymond Schinazi and Family Chair of Life Sciences. He is also most generously making a donation to establish a new Life Sciences Innovation Fund, ‘Synergy Awards’, available to Bath academics and students.