Tak­ing on biode­fense threats, an­tibi­otics mak­er Spero inks $54M in gov­ern­ment deals

Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts start­up Spero Ther­a­peu­tics is join­ing forces with US de­fense or­ga­ni­za­tions to see if their in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al an­tibi­ot­ic could be use­ful against biode­fense threats.

To help find out, Spero was award­ed $15.7 mil­lion in fund­ing from the Bio­med­ical Ad­vanced Re­search and De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty, or BAR­DA, with po­ten­tial to see an ad­di­tion­al $28.5 mil­lion over the next 5 years.

As part of an in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion, the US Army is step­ping up to test Spero’s an­tibi­ot­ic, SPR994, to see how it works against biode­fense threats like an­thrax, plague, and me­lioi­do­sis. Those stud­ies will be con­duct­ed by the US Army Med­ical Re­search In­sti­tute of In­fec­tious Dis­eases.

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