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Quantify Neurological Disease Pathology in Vivo

Multidiciplined TEAM

Rio Pharmaceuticals is home to an experienced team of professionals, established in the fields of PET imaging, neurology, tracer design and production, quantitative image analyses, CNS gene therapy, mathematics, database management, business development and more. Our collective expertise has supported exemplary strides in clinical PET imaging and neurological disease diagnostics.

Rio's Founding Management Team

John Forsayeth, Ph.D.

John Forsayeth, Ph.D.
 John Forsayeth, Ph.D., is Executive Chairman of Rio and is an expert in neurophysiology, biochemistry, and neurological gene therapy. Dr. Forsayeth is Professor Emeritus of Neurosurgery at UCSF and a co-founder of Xalud Therapeutics. An author of more than 120 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and co-inventor on several patents, he worked for eight years in the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industry, holding senior research posts at Elan and Avigen before returning to UCSF. He is a co-investigator on several NIH-funded programs and is a recognized expert in gene therapy.

John Gerdes, Ph.D.


John Gerdes, Ph.D., serves as Rio's President. He is an expert in CNS targets and medicinal chemistry and PET imaging tracer development, including pre-clinical and clinical PET imaging. Dr. Gerdes obtained his B.S. degree in Chemistry from Colorado State University, his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of California, Riverside, followed by his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a Professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy, Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Science at the University of Montana and also is a visiting Professor at the University of California San Francisco (Radiology) and Davis (Molecular Biosciences).

Peter Heinecke, JD/MBA


Peter Heinecke, JD/MBA, has extensive experience as a business and legal executive at a range of biotechnology companies, including BioElectron Technology Corporation, Aimmune Therapeutics, Xalud Therapeutics, and Aviir Inc. He also has 11 years of experience as a corporate and technology transactions attorney at major law firms, including Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati. He began his career as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley & Co.

Hal Cox, M.S.


Hal Cox, M.S., is a founding member of Rio's Board of Directors. He received graduate training in mathematics and computer science. Within the industry, he worked as a computational chemist on the structure-based design of small molecules and developed novel computational methods for the directed evolution of proteins. He co-developed some of the core computational technology used within Rio.

Dawn McGuire, M.D.


Dawn McGuire, M.D., is a board-certified neurologist with more than two decades of executive leadership experience in drug development resulting in therapeutic approvals across three divisions of the FDA. She was educated at Princeton University and Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, trained in Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, and completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship in clinical trial design and experimental therapeutics. Dr. McGuire is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and serves on numerous academic and philanthropic boards. She has authored or co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She is the co-author of Practical Ethics in Clinical Neurology.





Rio Pharmaceuticals

Email: info@riopharmaceuticals.com

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