
Spero Therapeutics (SPRO), headquartered in Cambridge’s Central Square neighborhood, announced this week that two government agencies would give the company up to $54.2 million to continue developing a new antibiotic for complicated urinary tract infections. The news came just days after Novartis revealed it would shut down its antibiotics unit and and license out its drug candidates — including one for a complicated urinary tract infection.
Paratek (PRTK), which has offices in Boston and Philadelphia, is working on new antibiotics that are similar to tetracycline. An antibody-drug conjugate against Pseudomonas from Visterra, a company in Waltham, Mass., that Otsuka bought for $430 million, is in the preclinical stage. Entasis Therapeutics, which also has its headquarters in Waltham, is working on antibiotics for several different infections, including gonorrhea.