Ralph Kohn attended Salford Grammar School, where he won a university scholarship for Manchester University. He achieved a BSc, MSc, PhD and received the Wilde Prize in Pharmacology for the best MSc thesis of the year.

Recipient of the Charter Travelling Fellowship of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, permitting him to study for 3 years at the Istituto Superiore di Sanita in Rome to work with 2 Nobel Laureates:  Sir Ernst B Chain FRS and Professor Daniel Bovet (foreign member of the Royal Society)

He is also a recipient of the Paterno Research Fellowship at the Institute in Rome.

He then received the Riker Fellowship to take him to New York, where he worked in the Department of Pharmacology, headed by Professor Albert Gilman at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

He was subsequently appointed senior Executive in the Research and Development Division of Smith Kline & French of Philadelphia, USA.  After 7 years with the company, he became MD of Robopharm, a company active in biological products, where he stayed 5 years.

In 1969, Ralph Kohn set up his own company Advisory Service (Clinical and General) Ltd., one of the first independent research companies providing essential pharmaceutical and medical services to the worldwide pharmaceutical industry.  The company played a significant role in clinical assessment of new therapeutic substances and in 1990 was recipient of the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement.

Ralph has been active in many research projects and, in addition to his work in the UK, Europe and the USA, has been very active in supporting the Japanese Pharmaceutical Industry.  He has also lectured in many countries on new drug developments, including India and Japan.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected in 2006 as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society.

During 2008 Ralph was appointed as an Honorary Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society. He has also been elected as a Bynum Tudor Fellow and has been invited to give the Bynum Tudor Lecture at Kellogg College, Oxford, later this year. He was also recently elected to Honorary Membership of the European Academy of Sciences.

He also described his life and work in 2003 as a guest of Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs.