Ray Avery

Sir Raymond John Avery (born 1947) is a New Zealand pharmaceutical scientist, inventor, author and social entrepreneur.

Personal life Avery was born in Kent, England. After spending his childhood in orphanages and foster homes, he has said he developed an interest in science at the age of 14 while sleeping rough in London and finding warmth in public libraries. He now mentors young people, speaking regularly at schools and universities. He was later educated at Wye College, a tertiary agricultural college in Kent. In 2010, Avery published his autobiography Rebel with a Cause, which charted his life from childhood in English orphanages and foster homes to knighthood.

Avery announced in August 2022 that he was moving to Australia, citing societal reasons, including high rates of bullying, domestic violence, gang violence, and obesity, the high cost of living, institutional racism in healthcare and education, a "broken" hospital system, and opposition to a proposed fund-raising concert for his Lifepod device at Eden Park.

Career After graduating, Avery worked as an analyst in laboratories, in which he eventually took a shareholding.

In the 1990s, as Technical Director of the Fred Hollows Foundation, Avery designed and commissioned two intraocular lens manufacturing facilities in Asmara, Eritrea and Kathmandu, Nepal. Avery worked with other members of the team to develop replacement equipment when it became apparent that the manufacturing equipment originally commissioned by the foundation was not suitable.

In 2003, Avery founded an organisation focused on international development, Medicine Mondiale, which he described as dedicated to making quality healthcare and equipment accessible to even the poorest developing nations around the world. It was registered as a charity in New Zealand in 2008 and is also known as the Sir Ray Avery Foundation.

In 2009, Avery received a World Class New Zealand Award in the Life Sciences category.

Avery is a co–founder of Jupl NZ Ltd, a medical technology company.

Projects Acuset IV flow controller The Acuset is a small device designed to control the flow of drugs through an intravenous (IV) drip. It was designed to simplify administering drips and to be used in developing countries without adequate medical care.

In December 2019 it was reported by Newsroom that clinical trials at Auckland City Hospital in 2008 showed that the Acuset was not more accurate than an existing device called a "roller clamp" which was already used widely in developing countries. The findings were subsequently published in a medical journal in 2015. Avery's position, set out in the article, was that the trials "did not reflect normal usage" of the Acuset and used an earlier version of the product.

Avery made a complaint to the New Zealand Media Council against Newsroom for reporting on the study and on allegations that he had sought the retraction of the study's findings. The complaint was not upheld by the council, which concluded that the Newsroom article contained no inaccuracies. In November 2018 the Department of Internal Affairs conducted a review after a complaint was made, and concluded it was satisfied that donations were being used properly, although it urged the foundation to consider "updating the public regarding the status of the LifePod incubators and managing their expectations as to when they will be most likely to be ready for delivery to Fiji".

In March 2019 it was reported that the Lifepod would begin hospital trials in India in July, but this did not eventuate. The agency also developed a nutritional bar called the "Amigo Bar", based on amino acids, which were intended to be distributed in New Zealand schools to supplement children's diets through a for-profit social enterprise business.

Books Avery published his autobiography Rebel with a Cause in 2010. He also wrote the foreword to The Power of Us: New Zealanders Who Dare to Dream, published in 2012.

Honours Avery has received awards including:

Year Award Notes 2008 Rotary Paul Harris Medal 2008 Bayer Research and Development Innovator Award Acuset flow controller 2009 World Class New Zealand Award for Biotechnology 2010 TBWA Disruption Award 2010 KiwiBank New Zealander of the Year 2011 Ernst and Young Social Entrepreneur Award 2011 Reader's Digest New Zealand's Most Trusted Person 2011 Knight Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit For his services to philanthropy