Graham Richards was until 2008 the head of the Chemistry Department at the University of Oxford, the biggest Chemistry Department in the western world.His research was largely in the area of computer-aided drug design of which he was one of the pioneers, publishing more than 350 papers and authoring some seventeen books.He was the scientific founder of Oxford Molecular Group Plc which was grown from a £350,000 start-up to a public company valued at its height at £450 million, before being sold for £70 million in two parts.He raised the £64 million to build the new Chemistry Research Laboratory at Oxford University with the most innovative aspect being the deal he did with a City institution whereby half of the University's equity in spin-out companies from his Department goes to the group in return for a substantial up-front payment. Out of that deal has grown IP Group Plc of which he is senior non-executive director. He also holds directorships in Oxeco Plc, Inhibox Ltd, TdeltaS Ltd and Crysalin Ltd and chairs the Publishing Board of the Royal Society of Chemistry upon whose Council he sits as well as being on the Council of the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences.Among the awards he has received are the Ital Gas Prize, American Chemical Society Award for Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research and the Mullard Award of The Royal Society.He has not really retired