Spero Therapeutics, LLC, a biopharmaceutical company founded to develop novel therapies for the treatment of bacterial infections, today announced the appointment of Joel Sendek as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Sendek brings more than 25 years of experience in the life sciences sector to Spero.

"Joel's broad experience in biotechnology and financial strategy makes him an ideal choice to lead our financial operations as we continue to expand and advance our diverse pipeline of anti-infectives," said Ankit Mahadevia, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Spero. "I am excited to welcome Joel to the team and am confident that his leadership will help Spero execute on our mission to address the growing threat of multidrug-resistant bacteria."

"I am pleased to join Spero at this pivotal time in the company's development as an innovator in the increasingly important antibacterials field," said Mr. Sendek. "I look forward to contributing to Spero's future growth as we work to bring novel therapies to this global unmet need."

Mr. Sendek was most recently the Chief Financial Officer of Forward Pharma A/S, which he joined in 2014. He previously spent over 17 years as a senior equity research analyst covering biotechnology. As an analyst, he served as a Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp. where he led the firm's healthcare equity research group, and previously he was a Managing Director at Lazard, where he established the firm's healthcare equity research effort. Prior to his career in equity research, Mr. Sendek worked as a Senior Director of Corporate Development at Progenics Pharmaceuticals and as an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Sendek holds a B.A. in Biochemistry from Rice University.

Additionally, Carol Waldo was appointed to the newly created position of Head of Regulatory Affairs. Ms. Waldo has more than 27 years of experience in drug development, including over 17 years in regulatory affairs across a number of therapeutic areas. Prior to Spero, Ms. Waldo served as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Cubist Pharmaceuticals where her responsibilities included regulatory strategy, advertising, promotion and labeling.

About Spero

Spero Therapeutics is a global multi-asset clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts dedicated to developing a novel and highly differentiated pipeline of antibacterials focused on unmet needs of patients with drug resistant bacterial infections. Spero Therapeutics is advancing two lead programs in parallel, SPR741 and SPR994. SPR741, also called Potentiator, is a platform approach to combination therapy to treat serious and life-threatening multidrug resistant Gram-negative infections, such as Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter baumannii, including carbapenem resistant strains. SPR741 increases the spectrum and potency of more than two dozen classes of Gram-positive antibiotics to include activity against multidrug resistant Gram-negative infections when used in combination. SPR994 is a novel oral agent that has demonstrated potent in–vitro activity against a wide variety of Gram-negative bacteria, including extended spectrum beta lactamases (ESBLs), and Gram-positive bacteria. Spero Therapeutics also has a robust preclinical pipeline including SPR720, which is a preclinical oral therapeutic candidate for mycobacteria infections including nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) lung disease, a rare and often chronic fatal infection. In addition, Spero Therapeutics has a variety of other discovery stage antimicrobials focused on drug resistant infections.

For more information, please visit https://sperotherapeutics.com.