Meet our Experienced
and Multidisciplined Team

Management

John Temperato, Chief Executive Officer
John is an industry veteran with a wealth of gastrointestinal (GI) focused experience in both the operational and commercial aspects of the business.  Prior to joining RDD, John held various leadership roles including most notably U.S. President & Chief Operating Officer with Atlantic Healthcare, President & Chief Operating Officer/Chief Commercial Officer with Melinta Therapeutics, and Senior Vice President of Sales and Managed Markets with Salix Pharmaceuticals. Notably, at Salix Pharmaceuticals (Salix), Mr. Temperato played a critical role in the successful commercialization and growth of their broad GI portfolio and executed over ten launches during his tenure at the company driving growth of company revenues from $119 million in 2004 to $2 billion in 2015. Across his career, John has been instrumental in defining and executing capital efficient go-to-market strategies, business development strategy and overseeing the commercialization and life-cycle management for small molecules, devices, and biologics. Additionally, he has developed strategies for reimbursement and external healthcare policy. John also brings with him extensive financial strategy and investor relations experience.

Nir Barak M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Founder
Dr. Barak’s career has focused on the integration of clinical medicine, basic research, and pharmaceutical development. He served as an attending physician in the department of internal medicine at Beilinson Hospital for 10 years.

Dr. Barak began engaging in drug development driven by feedback received from patients regarding shortcomings in available treatment options. Nir served as CSO and Founder of Obecure Ltd. — a company focused on re-purposing Betahistine as an anti-obesity agent. In 2008 after learning from patients of the dearth of treatment options for ano-rectal diseases, he founded RDD Pharma. Under Nir’s leadership, RDD has attracted  significant investment from OrbiMed Advisors. — a multinational private equity fund.

Dr. Barak earned his MD from the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Nutrition.

Howard Rice, RPh, BPharm, Vice President — Pharmaceuticals
Howard brings 30+ years of pharmaceutical formulation and development experience to RDD. Mr. Rice serves as a Director at Tilary Ltd, the Israel agent for American Biotech Labs (USA) and is the Israel delegate to the Federation International Pharmaceutique (FIP) – an NGO within the World Health Organization (WHO). He served as Vice President of the FIP for 8 years, and he is the former Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Association of Israel.

Mr. Rice earned a B.Pharm from the School of Pharmacy, University of London.

Robert Niecestro, Ph.D. — Regulatory Advisor
Robert is the managing director of Accelapharm. He serves as the Head of Regulatory Affairs and Vice President of Axsome Therapeutics. Dr. Niecestro also serves as the Executive Vice President of Clinical & Regulatory at TG Therapeutics, Inc. He was a regulatory consultant to Stemline Therapeutics from 2006 until December 2012.  Dr. Niecestro served as the VP Clinical & Regulatory Affairs at Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., where he negotiated six SPA agreements and filed the NDA for ferric citrate. He has held executive and senior management roles at Andrx Laboratories, Eisai Inc. and Organon Inc. He has been involved in the filing of over 45 Investigational New Drug (IND) applications. He has over 60 peer-reviewed publications and holds three patents.

Robert Shleypak, CCRN, BSN — Director, Clinical Operations
Robert has been monitoring multinational Phase I, II, and III clinical studies since 2005. Prior to joining RDD Pharma, he devoted nine years to Quintiles International as a Clinical Research Specialist and Clinical Lead working on six multinational trials. At Quintiles, Robert had comprehensive responsibility for planning patient recruitment, retention and clinical monitoring during the course of the studies. Prior to Quintiles, Robert was a Clinical Research Monitor at Rafa Laboratories.