Spero Therapeutics Adds 14% Following $40 Mln Investment By Pfizer

(RTTNews) - Shares of Spero Therapeutics, Inc. (SPRO) are climbing more than 14% Thursday morning at $15.97.

Wednesday, the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company announced that Pfizer Inc. (PFE) has made a $40 million equity investment in Spero.

Pfizer purchased 2,362,348 shares of Spero at $16.93 per share, the company said.

Spero and Pfizer have also entered into a licensing agreement for SPR206, Spero's drug candidate to treat serious multi-drug resistant Gram-negative infections in the hospital setting. The licensing agreement allows Pfizer to develop, manufacture, and commercialize SPR206 in ex-U.S. and ex-Asia territories. Spero is eligible to receive up to $80 million in development and sales milestones, and high single digit to low double-digit royalties on net sales of SPR206 in these territories.

Spero intends to use the proceeds from equity investment to support clinical development of its product pipeline.

SPRO has been trading in the range of $8.50- $23.64 in the past 52 weeks.