InVivo Therapeutics Appoints New President and CEO

InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. has appointed Acting CEO Richard Toselli, M.D., as the company’s new president and (permanent) CEO. Toselli also has been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors and will continue to serve in his capacity as InVivo’s chief medical officer, which role he assumed upon joining the company in July 2017. Toselli, a board-certified neurosurgeon, has led an accomplished career in surgical medical affairs, with senior leadership experience at Sanofi, DePuy, and Johnson & Johnson.
 
“I am delighted to announce Rich’s full-time role as CEO,” Board Chair Ann Merrifield said. “Rich has demonstrated clear vision, a strategic mind, and committed leadership in his time at InVivo. His background in surgical device innovation and neurological surgery is uniquely suited to the company’s focus in development.”
 
Prior to joining InVivo, Toselli served as chief medical officer for Cochlear Limited. In that role, he was responsible for global clinical, regulatory, and medical affairs teams reporting to the CEO. Previously, Toselli served five years at Sanofi in various levels of increasing responsibility, including vice president of Global Medical Affairs – Immunology and Inflammation, Biologics Division; vice president of Global Medical Affairs and head of the Biosurgery Discovery Performance Unit; and vice president of Global Medical Affairs, Biosurgery. Prior to this, he served as chief medical/technology officer for Covidien Surgical, and earlier held various roles at DePuy Spine including director of Medical Affairs, worldwide vice president of Research and Development, and worldwide vice president of Clinical Evidence and External Relations. He held the position of vice president of Evidence-Based Medicine at Johnson & Johnson for the device sector.

Toselli has a bachelor of arts degree from Providence College, a medical degree from Brown University, and a master of business administration from the UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. Toselli is a board-certified neurological surgeon.

“I am excited about the opportunity to work closely with our leadership team and board members and advisors as we chart the company’s path forward,” Toselli said. “Our priority is to focus on our core competencies, advance our breakthrough Neuro-Spinal Scaffold clinical program, and achieve this progress in an expedited, cost-efficient manner. We continue to evaluate our strategic and financing options, regarding which we believe we have gained additional flexibility by entering into the recently announced stock purchase agreement with Lincoln Park. As we have previously announced, we are in ongoing discussions with the FDA, including the potential of a proposed randomized controlled clinical trial to supplement the existing clinical evidence we have attained in our INSPIRE study for our Neuro-Spinal Scaffold investigational device. We expect to provide additional clarity on this clinical path in the second quarter of this year.”
 
InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. is a research and clinical-stage biomaterials and biotechnology company with a focus on treatment of spinal cord injuries. The company was founded in 2005 with proprietary technology co-invented by Robert Langer, Sc.D., professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Joseph P. Vacanti, M.D., who then was at Boston Children’s Hospital and who now is affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2011, the company earned the David S. Apple Award from the American Spinal Injury Association for its contribution to spinal cord injury medicine. In 2015, the company’s investigational Neuro-Spinal Scaffold received the 2015 Becker’s Healthcare Spine Device Award. The publicly traded company is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass.