Jānis Polis (25 June 1938 – 12 April 2011), was a Soviet and Latvian pharmacologist and the developer of one of the first methods of synthesis of rimantadine, which was discovered in 1963 by William W. Prichard of Du Pont & Co.[1][2][3][4] He was born in Eleja parish, Latvia. On 6 February 2009 Polis was awarded the WIPO Award for Outstanding Inventors.[5] Polis died in Riga, Latvia on 12 April 2011 at the age of 72.