Professor Gary Evans has a background in organic, medicinal and process development chemistry. Gary carried out his degree and PhD in Chemistry at the University of Otago followed by postdoctoral studies at the University of Oxford. Gary’s research has focussed on the design and development of drugs for the treatment of unmet medical needs. Gary has more than 100 peer reviewed publications with an H-index of 40 and several hundred patents. After working as lab manager in the UK Biotech Oxford Asymmetry Professor Evans returned to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1994 on a Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology postdoctoral fellowship, hosted by Industrial Research Ltd (IRL). As a research at IRL, Callaghan Innovation (CI) and now Victoria University of Wellington, Gary’s research has been carried out predominantly in collaboration with researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine based in New York. Most recently Gary’s research has focussed on the discovery and development of new antivirals as part of a multi-million-dollar MBIE Endeavour programme awarded prior to the Covid pandemic. In terms of career highlights Professor Evans was the inventor of the experimental drug Ulodesine which was licensed to Roche in 2005 for 560 million USD. For this work and his contribution to the design and synthesis of several other drugs, including the market approved drug Mundesine, Gary received the inaugural MacDiarmid medal awarded by the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2011. Gary also founded a process development team while at IRL and was the original project manager for the design and build of Glycosyn, a business unit of CI. For his overall contribution to science he was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2014 and became the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Chief Science Advisor in 2019. As MBIE’s Chief Science advisor Professor Evans provides science advice to the entirety of the ministry but in particular around the development and operationalisation of science policy. MBIE, as steward of the research, science, and innovation sector develops policy concerning funding and sector structure. As part of his MBIE secondment Gary sits on the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisors Forum chaired by Dame Professor Juliet Gerrard.
