InVivo Therapeutics has appointed former Cubist executive team leader Dr Lorianne Masuoka as its new chief medical officer.
Dr Masuoka will become the biotech firm’s new chief medical officer (CMO) from 2 March this year.
She takes over from the interim CMO, Lou Vaickus. Prior to joining the InVivo team, Dr Masuoka served as senior VP and CMO at Cubist Pharmaceuticals from July 2013 until Jan 2015.
As a member of Cubist’s executive management team, she managed over 150 employees in the areas of clinical research, drug safety, biostatistics and data management, and clinical operations.
This comes just several months after Cubist was bought by MSD. The $8.4bn dollar deal saw MSD take full control of the antibiotic specialist and was agreed in December last year.
Prior to her time at Cubist, she served in various roles of increasing responsibility at Nektar Therapeutics, including senior VP and CMO from August 2008 until August 2011.
Mark Perrin, chief executive and chairman of the board, said: “I am very pleased to have Lorianne joining the InVivo team at such an exciting time in our company’s history.
“Her medical background in neurology and extensive experience in clinical development, managing early to late stage clinical trials in neurological indications and many other multidisciplinary indications will make her an invaluable asset as we move forward with our current and future clinical programmes.
“I also wish to acknowledge the excellent work Lou Vaickus has done at InVivo since joining in late 2013. He successfully partnered with a team of clinical and regulatory experts to initiate our first clinical trial.
“In addition, during his tenure as CMO, he led a close collaboration with the FDA to greatly improve the efficiency of the first-in-man study by expanding the number of allowable clinical sites from 6 to 20, expedited the enrolment plan, and enrolled our first two subjects in the trial. Lou was also an integral part of the leadership team in a range of corporate activities, such as our corporate financings.”