Honorary graduates

Ken Richardson2013

Dr Kenneth Richardson OBE – Ilkeston-born discoverer of a life-saving drug

Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science (HonDSc) in recognition of his outstanding contribution to drug discovery and the saving of lives around the world.

Kenneth Richardson left school in Nottingham aged 16 to be a lab assistant. He took evening classes to gain a chemistry degree in 1965 from the Nottingham and District Technical College, now Nottingham Trent University, before full-time study and a PhD at Nottingham University three years later.

He worked with Nobel laureate R B Woodward at Harvard and became a research chemist in the United States and Britain with Pfizer, the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company. In 1981 his team discovered Fluconazole, a drug that revolutionised the treatment of fungal infections. It is used worldwide by an estimated 30 million people, in transplant surgery, and treating severe burns, AIDS-related illness and other life-threatening conditions.

Dr Richardson received an OBE in 1997 for Services to Medical Research and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, in Akron, Ohio in 2008.