Christopher Evans (businessman)
Sir Christopher Thomas Evans OBE is a Welsh biotechnology entrepreneur.
Career
Born in Port Talbot, he was educated in microbiology at Imperial College London then obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Hull, followed by a research fellowship at the University of Michigan.
Evans runs Merlin Biosciences (founded 1996), which manages investments in the biotechnology industry. He was the founder of Chiroscience (now merged with Celltech), Celsis, Enzymatix, and over 20 other life sciences based companies during his career.
Setting up Arthurian Ltd, it successfully bid to run the Wales Life Sciences Investment Fund, a £100M 50/50 joint venture life sciences investment fund created to attract business to Wales. The fund has invested in and provided grants to ReNeuron, in which Evans has also invested.[1]
Awards
Twice elected "Cambridge Businessman of the Year", he was awarded the OBE in 1995 and knighted in 2001.
He made a £1 million loan to the British Labour Party during 2005. He was appointed a Honorary Fellow[2] of the Royal Academy of Engineering[3] in 2005. In March of that year, he was appointed by Gordon Brown to the UK Stem Cell Initiative. He was arrested on 20 September 2006 as part of police enquiries into the "Cash for Peerages" allegations,[4] but on the 19 July 2007 the UK Crown Prosecution Service announced that there was insufficient evidence to bring the case to court.
Personal life
Resident in Bibury, in the Sunday Times Rich List 2006 Evans was listed in 364th place with an estimated fortune of £158 million. He has a wife and four grown children. As a boy, he attended the St Joseph's school in Port Talbot.