Deputy Vice-Chancellor, 

Good morning, I’m Professor Sarah George, the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences.  

Dr Jonathan De Pass is a former Bristol medical student who, in common with many of our graduates, has gone on to great things. However, as may be the case for many of our graduates today, his career path was far from obvious to him to begin with.Over the course of his career Jonathan became a world leader in the field of market analytics for the pharmaceutical industry. He led the way in creating new industry standards for forecasting global drug sales. He is an exemplaryexcellent example of someone who wanted to create something innovative, and through building his experience and knowledge, achieved his goals and helped change the industry in which he operated.  
  
After graduating in medicine from the University of Bristol in 1979, Jonathan trained and worked as a doctor in London. He held ambitions to develop the UK equivalent of the US biotechnology company Genentech Inc..With this ambitious goal in mind Jonathan decided to leave medicine and begin a career in the City. He joined Robert Fleming in 1983 where he started as a Healthcare Analyst. Remarkably, within five years he was Director of European Healthcare Research at the company, and in 1989 he joined Barclays de Zoete Wedd, where he became Head of Healthcare Research. During this time, he regularly commented on events in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries for influential media outlets such as the Financial Times, the New York Times, and The Times.   
  
Jonathan left Barclays in 1994, and with a desire to further enhance his expertise he undertook a Masters in Management at the London Business School as a Sloan Fellow. Even whilst he was studying, hisexpert opinion on pharmaceutical industry matters was still sought by the financial press.   
  
In 1996, Jonathan founded the Evaluate Group. Evaluate would provide the pharmaceutical industry with a consensus view of forecasts within the sector. It would allow the focus to move from the aggregation of sales forecasts to the interpretation of them, leading to better informed decisions and outcomes. When the concept was presented to the industry, impressively half of the biggest drug development companies signed up within the first twelve months. Evaluate’s platform was able to effectively providea single source of information that the companies were individually spending considerable amounts of time and money on gathering.   
  
Jonathan served as CEO of Evaluate until 2014, and then as Chairman until 2020. During this time, he led the way in creating new industry standards for forecasting global drug sales and other performance metrics. The global impact of Jonathan’s vision is astounding. Evaluate now has over 200 clients globally including pharmaceutical, medtech and biotechnology companies, investment banks, insurers, marketing and media companies. The company is headquartered in London and has a presence in Europe, Japan, India, and the United States. Jonathan retired as a board member of the company in 2021 following a merger between Evaluate and MMIT, a leading provider of market access solutions to the US pharmaceutical industry.  
  
In the Evaluate Group, Jonathan has created a company that became a market leader within its field, reliably providing forecasts to inform decisions made by some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies. He is highly regarded for insights on market movements and decisions being made within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors.  

Since retiring from Evaluate, Jonathan has switched his focus towards the University of Bristol. This is evidenced through his significant philanthropic actions for medical research and supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs, as well giving guidance and advice as a member of University boards.  ​  

Jonathan is an extremely kind, considerate, and humble man who in addition to enabling global impact within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, is achieving great impact with his giving. He truly is an inspiration to others.He has shown a strong interest in meeting researchers and finding out about the impact of their work and has credited the University as “the springboard to a varied career that I have thoroughly enjoyed”. In 2017, Jonathan agreed to give a £1million gift to the University to support the Centre for Innovation and Enterprise (CfIE), as well as research projects in neuroscience, cardiovascular and population health research. During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Jonathan made significant philanthropic contributions to the University’s research efforts including funding for the microscopes within thenew CL-3 Infectious Diseases Lab Suite. 

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I present to you Jonathan De Pass as eminently worthy of the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa.