Allen McClay

Background

Doctor McClay was born in Cookstown, County Tyrone in 1932 and was the youngest of six children.

Education

He attended Cookstown High School and Belfast College of Technology (now Belfast Metropolitan College) later qualifying as a pharmacist in 1953 after apprenticeship.

Career

After resigning from Galen in 2001, he went on to form a second successful pharmaceutical company, the Almac Group. In 1955, he joined Glaxo, where he worked for 13 years as a medical representative, before founding his own company, Galen, in Craigavon in 1968. He left Galen, which produces contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy drugs, in 2001, having become unhappy with the company"s direction after its London Stock Exchange flotation in 1997.

McClay retired from Galen on 31 September, and the following day rented accommodation close to the site Galen occupied for what would become his second successful company, Almac Sciences.

McClay purchased five divisions of Galen Holdings PLC and formed Almac in January 2002. Almac provides services including research & development and manufacturing to other pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline.

The company, whose turnover is £167m, employs more than 1500 people in Craigavon and has expanded into England, Scotland and the United States. McClay established the McClay Trust in 1997, a charitable organisation which "support research and development activities within Queen"s University".

The trust has donated £20 million to the university, which has included sponsorship of Doctor of Philosophy studentships at the university"s Cancer Research centre.

The trust also funded the £3.5m McClay Research Centre at the School of Pharmacy which opened in 2002, and contributed money to the building of the new University Library at Queen"s, which opened in 2009 and is now named after McClay. Sir George Bain, a former vice-chancellor at Queen"s, has described McClay as "the most significant philanthropist Northern Ireland has ever known". McClay was reported by the 2009 Sunday Times Rich List to be Northern Ireland"s sixth richest person, with wealth estimated at £190 million.

In 2009, he used his wealth to establish the McClay Foundation, a charitable trust focused on cancer research.

McClay received an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1994, followed by a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000 for contributions to the pharmaceutical industry in Northern Ireland. He had no children. He died on 12 January at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He had been receiving treatment for cancer.

Achievements

• In the New Year Honours List of 2006 he was made Knight Bachelor for services to business and charity.