Company: SPRB
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0000950170-25-059288
Chunk: 27

Company: SPRUCE BIOSCIENCES, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 27
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 were designed to help ensure that the Compensation Committee’s compensation consultants continued to fulfill their role in providing independent, objective advice.

Under its charter, the Compensation Committee may form, and delegate authority to, subcommittees as appropriate. The Board previously formed an Equity Award Committee (the “Equity Award Committee”), currently composed solely of our Chief Executive Officer, to which it delegated authority to grant, without any further action required by the Board or the Compensation Committee, stock options and restricted stock units to employees who are not executives of the Company, in each case pursuant to the 2020 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2020 Plan”). The purpose of this delegation of authority is to enhance the flexibility of equity award administration within the Company and to

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facilitate the timely grant of equity awards to non-executive employees, particularly new employees, within specified limits approved by the Board. During fiscal 2024, the Equity Award Committee exercised its authority to grant an aggregate of 300,000 restricted stock units with both performance-based and time-based vesting conditions to non-executive employees.

Typically, the Compensation Committee makes most of the significant adjustments to annual compensation, determines bonus and equity awards and establishes new performance objectives at one or more meetings held during the first quarter of the year. However, the Compensation Committee also considers matters related to individual compensation, such as compensation for new executive hires, as well as high-level strategic issues, such as the efficacy of the Company’s compensation strategy, potential modifications to that strategy and new trends, plans or approaches to compensation, at various meetings throughout the year. Generally, the Compensation Committee’s process comprises two related elements: the determination of compensation levels and the establishment of performance objectives for the current year. For executives other than our Chief Executive Officer, the Compensation Committee solicits and considers evaluations and recommendations submitted to the Compensation Committee by our Chief Executive Officer.

In the case of our Chief Executive Officer, the evaluation of his performance is conducted by the Compensation Committee, which determines any adjustments to his compensation as well as awards to be granted. For all executives and directors as part of its deliberations, the Compensation Committee may review and consider, as appropriate, materials such as financial reports and projections, operational data, tax and accounting information, tally sheets that set forth the total compensation that may become payable to executives in various hypothetical scenarios, executive and director stock ownership information, company stock performance data, analyses of historical executive compensation levels and current Company-wide compensation levels and recommendations of the Compensation Committee’s