Pioneers in the Field of Infectious Disease Treatment

Ankit Mahadevia, MD President and CEO

Ankit Mahadevia is the CEO of Spero Therapeutics and a member of the Board of Directors. He was formerly a Venture Partner in the life sciences group at Atlas Venture, located in Cambridge, MA. In that capacity he supported the formation of eight companies focused on novel drug discovery platforms and therapeutic products including Nimbus Therapeutics, Arteaus Therapeutics (acquired by Lilly), and Translate Bio (Nasdaq: TBIO). He led three of these as Acting CEO, including Synlogic (Nasdaq: SYBX). Prior to joining Atlas in 2008, Ankit worked on product and business development with the founding team at Arcion Therapeutics. He has also held positions in business development both at Genentech and at Vanda Pharmaceuticals. Previously, he worked in the health care groups of McKinsey & Company and Monitor Group. Ankit began his career in health care policy, with roles in the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committees, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS). He has spoken widely on entrepreneurship, including at Harvard University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and the Berkeley Forum. Ankit has also been active in the policy of life science innovation, including service on the Advisory Council at the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Studies.

Cristina Larkin Chief Operating Officer

Cristina Larkin is the Chief Operating Officer at Spero Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA. Ms. Larkin has over 22 years of experience developing strategic commercial insights for biopharmaceutical companies and their infectious disease products such as Avycaz, Dalvance, Teflaro, Levaquin and Floxin. Prior to joining Spero, she served as Assistant Vice President for Actavis, formerly Forest Laboratories. During that time, Ms. Larkin led the commercial hospital antibiotic franchise team and was responsible for the US launch and execution strategy for several antibiotics. Additionally, she was a member of the business assessments and business development team and played an integral role in the out-licensing of ceftaroline to AstraZeneca, the acquisition of Durata and more.

Ms. Larkin received a bachelor’s degree from Florida State University.

David Melnick, MD Chief Medical Officer

Dr. David Melnick is the Chief Medical Officer at Spero Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA. Dr. Melnick has 18 years of experience in anti-infective drug development. Prior to joining Spero Therapeutics, Dr. Melnick served as Vice President of Clinical Development for Anti-Infectives at Allergan since 2015. In that capacity, he oversaw the development and regulatory approval of Teflaro®, Avycaz®, and Dalvance® in the United States.  Prior to Allergan, Dr. Melnick served fifteen years at AstraZeneca in various levels of increasing responsibility, most recently as Vice President of Clinical Development for Anti-Infectives. In that capacity, he oversaw the late stage clinical development of Merrem®, Teflaro®, and Avycaz®. In addition, he served as the acting Vice President for early development at AstraZeneca. He received his medical training at Columbia University, followed by a Residency in Internal Medicine at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.  Following a Fellowship in Infectious Disease at Yale University, he held faculty positions at the Boston University School of Medicine and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  He subsequently joined Kaiser-Permanente as a practicing Infectious Diseases specialist and as the Director of HIV Clinical Research at Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic, with a faculty appointment at Georgetown University.

Thomas Parr, PhD Chief Scientific Officer

Tom Parr, PhD, has more than 26 years drug discovery experience across both large pharmaceutical and small biotechnology companies. Prior to joining Spero, Dr. Parr was the Chief Scientific Officer at Fedora Pharmaceuticals where the company moved novel diazabicyclooctane beta-lacramase inhibitors toward development partnerships. Prior to Fedora he was the Chief Scientific Officer at Targanta Therapeutics, now part of The Medicines Company. While at Targanta, Dr. Parr was instrumental in progressing the lipoglycopeptide, oritavancin through Phase 3 trials to registration with the FDA. Dr. Parr has worked on a broad range of marketed antibiotics including beta-lactams (cefaclor, loracarbef, cefuroxime axetil, cephalexin, moxalactam, ceftazidime, cefazolin, RWJ-333441); glycopeptides (vancomycin and oritavancin); lipodepsipeptides (daptomycin); aminoglycosides (tobramycin); quinolones (cinoxacin); macrolides (dirythromycin); antimicrobial peptides (iseganins); and a variety of additional developmental candidates.

Dr. Parr earned his PhD from the University of Calgary and conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia. He was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Ottawa before beginning his drug discovery and development career.

Timothy Keutzer Chief Development Officer

Tim Keutzer is the Chief Development Officer at Spero Therapeutics. Tim has over 20 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry, spanning multiple functional and therapeutic areas. Prior to joining Spero, he was Vice President of Program and Portfolio Management at Cubist Pharmaceuticals. While there, he was the program leader for ceftolozane/tazobactam, which progressed rapidly from Phase 1 to Phase 3, and was approved in the US in December of 2014. Prior to that role, he also lead several of Cubist’s in-licensed development programs, and also lead the commercial supply chain for Cubicin. His experience before Cubist spans the drug development continuum across multiple drug classes, and includes preclinical PK/PD and clinical operations at Genetics Institute, as well as global strategic marketing and program management at Wyeth. Tim began his career in contract toxicology labs.

Tim studied English and microbiology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY.

Sath Shukla Chief Financial Officer

Sath Shukla is Chief Financial Officer at Spero Therapeutics. He was most recently Chief Financial Officer at Ziopharm Oncology, Inc., where he directed all of Ziopharm’s financial aspects, including financial planning, analysis and reporting, treasury and tax functions, capital strategy and investor relations. Prior to Ziopharm, Mr. Shukla was Vice President and Global Head of Corporate Finance for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he managed financial planning, analysis and budgeting, and led the annual long-range planning process encompassing Vertex’s entire portfolio and operations across more than 30 countries. Previously, Mr. Shukla was a Principal at Cornerstone Research, where he led teams providing consulting services for life science clients ranging from start-ups to multi-billion-dollar corporations. Prior to Cornerstone, he worked for finance consulting firms LECG Corporation and Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett, Inc. Mr. Shukla earned a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and an M.B.A. in Finance and Strategy from Yale University. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Tamara Joseph, JD, LLM Chief Legal Officer

Ms. Tamara Joseph is the Chief Legal Officer at Spero Therapeutics. She is a seasoned health care leader, having served on executive teams and advised Boards of Directors at multiple publicly and privately-held companies. She has led legal, compliance, human resources, public and government affairs, and risk management departments at life science companies in the US and in Europe for over 20 years. Prior to joining Spero in December 2020, she served as General Counsel at Millendo Therapeutics, Inc. Ms. Joseph previously served as General Counsel at Enzyvant Therapeutics Ltd., InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp., Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Mayne Pharma Ltd. (acquired by Hospira), and Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc. (acquired by Shire). Earlier in her career, Ms. Joseph established and led Biogen Idec’s legal and public affairs departments outside the US. She began her legal career at the law firms of Morrison & Foerster and Fried Frank. She has a BA in Economics from Duke University, a JD from the University of Michigan Law School, and LLM degrees from the College of Europe in Belgium and the University of Paris.

Ms. Joseph is also a member of the Board of Directors of Heluna Health, a member of the Board’s Executive Committee and its Governance Committee. Heluna Health is a population health non-profit with a focus on child and maternal nutrition, HIV prevention and homelessness. Ms. Joseph is also an independent director on the Board of BINA Farm Center, a therapeutic horseback riding association.

Troy Lister, PhD Vice President of Research and Development

Troy Lister, PhD, is the Vice President of Research and Development at Spero Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA. Dr. Lister previously held roles as Team Leader of Infection Chemistry at AstraZeneca and Investigator III in Global Discovery Chemistry at the Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research. He has lead numerous discovery programs searching for novel agents targeting bacterial and viral pathogens including multidrug resistant Gram negative and Gram positive bacteria, hepatitis C virus, human rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, ebola virus and human enterovirus. Dr. Lister has led programs from the earliest stages of target selection and high throughput screening, through lead identification and optimization, to candidate selection and IND enablement. He is an author of 15 peer review publications, has extensive experience in natural product chemistry and is a member of the American Chemical Society.

Dr. Lister received his B.Tech, B.S. and PhD degrees from Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California with Professoer K.C. Nicolaou.

Michael Pucci, PhD Executive Director – Early Drug Discovery

Michael J. Pucci, PhD, is Executive Director, Early Drug Discovery, at Spero Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA. He has previously held positions in antibacterial drug discovery at Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., and in R&D at Microlife Technics/Unilever. In addition to drug discovery, his research interests include microbial genomics, antibiotic resistance mechanisms, and novel antibacterial agents. He is an author on more than 80 publications and 17 patents. He is a member of the American Society for Microbiology and currently serves on the ASM ICAAC Program Committee. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Microbial Drug Resistance, and the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. He has served on several NIH review panels including the Drug Discovery and Resistance (DDR) Study Section. Dr. Pucci received his B.S. in Biology from the University of Connecticut, his PhD in Microbiology from Temple University, and had post-doctoral training at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Melissa Stundick, PhD Vice President of Business Development

Melissa Stundick, Ph.D., is the Vice President of Business Development for Spero Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA. Previously, she was the Anti-infectives Program Chief within the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for over 5 years. During that time, she oversaw a portfolio of contracts that supported the procurement or research and development novel antibacterials, smallpox antivirals, antitoxins and ebola therapeutics. Prior to HHS, she was a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton where she provided scientific consultation to the Department of Defense, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other organizations.

Dr. Stundick received a B.S. in Chemistry from Bates College and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She also holds a Certificate of Intelligence Analysis from the University of Maryland.

Angela Talley, MD Vice President of Clinical Development

Dr. Angela Talley is the Vice President of Clinical Development at Spero Therapeutics and clinical lead for the NTM program. Dr. Talley is an Infectious Disease physician with over 12 years of experience in anti-infective clinical research and drug development in both academia and industry. Prior to joining Spero Therapeutics, Dr. Talley served as Executive Director of Clinical Development for Anti-Infectives at Allergan, plc, where she led clinical development activities for multiple anti-infective programs in Phase I-IV development since 2015 and prior to this held similar roles for related clinical development programs at Cerexa, Inc (a subsidiary of Forest Laboratories, later acquired by Actavis, plc). During her time in industry, she has and established a successful track record for clinical development and regulatory strategy, including multiple successful NDA/sNDA approvals. She received her M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine with research honors, and subsequently completed internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and Infectious Disease Fellowship training at the University of Washington. Early in her career she was appointed as a Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute Research Scholar and received a Fellowship award for her work in the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, NIAID. She held clinical faculty appointments at Columbia University (HIV Vaccines Trial Unit) and later at University of Washington and the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, where her research focus was on clinical trials of novel malaria therapeutics and malaria vaccine development before transitioning to Industry.

Ian A. Critchley, PhD Vice President of Clinical Microbiology

Ian A. Critchley, Ph.D. is Vice President of Clinical Microbiology at Spero Therapeutics.  Prior to joining Spero Therapeutics, Dr. Critchley served as Vice President of Clinical Microbiology at Allergan plc since 2015, where he managed pre-clinical and clinical microbiology studies on anti-infective compounds.  Prior to Allergan plc, Dr. Critchley served six years at Cerexa, Inc., a subsidiary of Forest Laboratories, Inc., as the Vice President of Clinical Microbiology overseeing microbiology studies for its anti-bacterial programs. Prior to Cerexa, Inc., Dr. Critchley served as the Executive Director of Microbiology at Replidyne, Inc. for six years and held earlier positions at Focus Technologies, Inc. and SmithKline Beecham plc. He received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

Jay Blackington Vice President of People Strategy and Culture

Jay has over 30 years as a Human Resource executive with a variety of organizations such as information technology, life sciences, and financial services.  His most recent healthcare experience was as Human Resources leader at InVivo Therapeutics.  Prior to InVivo Therapeutics, Jay held executive positions at Avid Technology, EMC, State Street, and Monsanto.  He brings to Spero global leadership experiences living and working in Asia, Australia and Japan, EMEA and North America, and has a proven track record of building trusted partnerships with employees, the board of directors and shareholders.  He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts and his graduate degree from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.

Terese Hoekstra Vice President of Market Access

Terese Hoekstra is the Vice President of Market Access at Spero. She brings over 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical market access and has held several leadership roles.  She has extensive product launch and commercialization experience in variety of therapeutic areas including Multiple Sclerosis, Schizophrenia, Opioid Addiction, Hereditary Angioedema, Anti-infectives, and Osteoarthritis.  Prior to joining Spero, Terese wasthe Senior Director of Market Access at Flexion Therapeutics. During that time, she led a successful product launch in market access and the national field teams covering health plans and large health systems. Terese previously worked at Alkermes, Dyax, Targanta Therapeutics and Biogen.

Terese received her B.A. from University of Massachusetts, Amherst and her Master of Health Administration from Suffolk University, Sawyer School of Management in Boston.

Jennifer Reese, PharmD Vice President of Medical Affairs

Dr. Jennifer Reese, Pharm.D. is the Vice President of Medical Affairs at Spero Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA.  Dr. Reese has over 20 years of proven brand strategy and launch experience across the gamut of Medical Affairs functions. She has launched nearly two dozen branded oral and IV products throughout her career including Vabomere, Orbactiv, Baxdela, and Teflaro.  She was most recently at Melinta Therapeutics and The Medicines Company where she was responsible for shaping and implementing the Medical Affairs strategy across their antibiotics portfolio; the majority of her career was spent at Forest Laboratories/Actavis/Allergan where she led External Medical Affairs and Medical Information. Dr. Reese received her B.S., Pharmacy at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and her Doctor of Pharmacy at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.  

Sharon Klahre Vice President of Investor Relations and Strategic Finance

Sharon Klahre is the Vice President of Investor Relations and Strategic Finance at Spero Therapeutics. Prior to joining Spero Therapeutics in 2017, she led Investor Relations at Forward Pharma A/S, a development stage company focused on multiple sclerosis. In addition to serving as a liaison to the investor community, she provides input on financial strategy and has participated in several follow-on financings and IPOs. Ms. Klahre previously spent 10 years in equity research covering small to large cap biotechnology companies at Stifel Financial Corp and Lazard Capital Markets. Prior to her career in equity research, Ms. Klahre worked at Roche Molecular Diagnostics. She received her B.S. in Biology from Lehigh University.