InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. announced that Richard Toselli, M.D., has been appointed acting chief executive officer of the company, replacing Mark D. Perrin, who has resigned as chief executive officer and chairman of the company's board of directors. Dr. Toselli, a Board-certified neurosurgeon possessing senior leadership experience in surgical medical affairs at firms including Sanofi, DePuy, and Johnson & Johnson, will continue to serve in his capacity as the company's chief medical officer, which role he assumed upon joining the company in July 2017.

Mr. Perrin has agreed to serve as a consultant to the company for a period of six months. The company also announced that Ann Merrifield was appointed as chair of the board of directors. Ms. Merrifield previously served as the company's lead director.

Prior to joining the company, Dr. 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 chief executive officer. Previously, Dr. 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.

Ms. Merrifield serves as a director on a number of boards, including Flexion Therapeutics, Juniper Pharmaceuticals and Veritas Genetics. She recently served as president and chief executive officer at PathoGenetix. Prior to this, Ms. Merrifield spent 18 years at Genzyme in a number of leadership roles, including as president of Genzyme Biosurgery and as president of Genzyme Genetics.

Previously, she was a partner at Bain and company.