Scientist Sir Ray Avery will give the keynote address at New Zealand's Single Width Users' Group conference in August.

An award-winning pharmaceutical scientist was a founding member of the Auckland University School of Medical Science's Department of Clinical Pharmacology and former technical director of Douglas Pharmaceuticals, Avery has been a major contributor to the development of New Zealand's pharmaceutical industry over the past 30 years.

"He is also renowned as an entertaining speaker, with great stories to share," SWUG chairperson Dan Blackbourn says.

"Having spent his childhood in English orphanages and foster homes, he developed an interest in science at the age of 14 while living rough on the streets of London and seeking warmth and inspiration in public libraries.

"As technical advisor to the Fred Hollows Foundation he designed and commissioned two state-of-the-art intraocular lens laboratories in Nepal and Eritrea, which now supply 16 per cent of the world's market, and thanks to the innovative manufacturing technology, the global cost has decreased to the point modern cataract surgery is available to the poorest of the poor."

The 2015 SWUG conference will be held at Millennium Hotel Rotorua on August 19-20. Delegates will visit Norske Skog's in Kawerau newsprint mill, about an hour from Rotorua. After planting schemes in the 1920s and 1930s, the mill - then the Tasman Pulp and Paper Co - opened in 1952, leading to the development of Kawerau itself. Kraft pulp operations were sold to Carter Holt Harvey in 2001.

More details on the conference - including preferential hotel bookings - from www.swug.co.nz or call Dan Blackbourn on 021 770 804. Registrations to the conference close on June 30.