William H. Slattery III, MD, Chief Executive Officer William H. Slattery III MD is a neuro-otologist with a private practice at the House Ear Clinic, and serves concurrently as a clinical professor of otolaryngology at the University of Southern California. He co-founded O-Ray Pharma, Inc. in order to further his work in the pioneering field of drug delivery to the inner ear. Dr. Slattery has extensive research experience as a principal investigator of grants receiving more than $7 million in funding. Most recently, he was the principal investigator for a Department of Defense international multi-site study investigating the natural history of neurofibromatosis type II. Dr. Slattery has unique experience with intratympanic therapies having completed two prospective intratympanic drug trials for sudden hearing loss. The protocols he developed for these studies resulted in the development and implementation of standardization criteria for comparisons of treatment outcomes which have been utilized by other investigators in other institutions. Dr. Slattery is an internationally recognized otologist and brings his expertise to the development of these drugs and their application to the inner ear.

Thomas J. Smith, MD, Chief Science Officer Thomas J. Smith, MD is a cofounder of O-Ray Pharma, Inc., and serves as a company director, and as its Chairman and Chief Science Officer. Dr. Smith was founder and director of the Laboratory of Ocular Pharmacology and Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Kentucky. A board-certified ophthalmologist, he was also a principal in a Boston-based private practice, as well as a faculty member at Harvard University. Dr. Smith received his M.D. degree from the University of Toronto. Dr. Smith was previously the co-founder, medical director and Chairman at Control Delivery Systems, Inc. (CDS).  During his tenure at CDS he was responsible for the approval of the Vitrasert®, the first intra-ocular drug delivery system approved by the FDA. Dr. Smith also founded Auritec Pharmaceuticals (www.auritecpharma.com), a company with NIH funded projects in arthritis, ophthalmology, psychiatry, neurology and infectious disease.

Erik Pierstorff, PhD, Chief Operations Officer, Vice President, Research & Development. Dr. Pierstorff received his PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded a National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Training Award fellowship and completed his NIH postdoctoral work in gene therapy vector design. Dr. Pierstorff evolved his postdoctoral experience to work on the development of multi-therapeutic nanomaterials in the Departments of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. This work led to the creation of Biotic Laboratories, Inc. where Dr. Pierstorff was a co-founder, Chief Technology Officer and CEO. Biotic’s assets have been acquired by O-Ray. Dr. Pierstorff’s research interests have focused on integrating biology and biomedical engineering for the goal of sustained drug delivery.  He has over 50 peer reviewed publications in the fields of Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Genetics.