Benzinga | May 17, 2021 04:06PM EDT

Spero Therapeutics Awarded up to $23M By The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to Support the Development of SPR206

Spero Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRO), a multi-asset clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on identifying, developing, and commercializing treatments in high unmet need areas involving multi-drug resistant bacterial infections and rare diseases, today announced that it has been awarded funding of $2.09 million, with the potential for up to an additional $21.3 million over 5 years, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The funding will support the further clinical development of SPR206, an intravenously (IV)-administered next-generation polymyxin product candidate derived from Spero's potentiator platform that is being developed to treat serious multi-drug resistant (MDR) Gram-negative infections in the hospital setting.

The initial award provides funding for pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic studies to aid in dose selection, manufacturing process development, clinical microbiology, and support for regulatory interactions. If fully exercised, the award additionally provides funding for a broad range of activities including new drug application (NDA)-enabling toxicology studies, drug substance, and drug product manufacturing, a Phase 1 absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) study, and a Phase 2 clinical proof-of-concept study to evaluate the efficacy of SPR206 in target indications.