Company: SPRB
Filing Date: 2025-04-18
Form Type: PRE 14A
Source: 0000950170-25-055856
Chunk: 11

Company: SPRUCE BIOSCIENCES, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-04-18
Form: PRE 14A
Chunk 11
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 by the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee (“Nominating Committee”).

It is the Company’s policy to invite directors and nominees for director to attend the Annual Meeting, including virtually if applicable. All of the directors attended the 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

Directors are elected at the Annual Meeting by a plurality of the votes of the holders of shares present virtually or represented by proxy and entitled to vote on the election of directors. Accordingly, the three nominees receiving the highest number of affirmative votes will be elected. Each person nominated for election has agreed to serve if elected. The Company’s management has no reason to believe that any nominee will be unable to serve.

The Nominating Committee seeks to assemble a board that, as a whole, is diverse and possesses the appropriate balance of professional and industry knowledge, financial expertise and high-level management experience necessary to oversee and direct the Company’s business. To that end, the Nominating Committee has identified and evaluated nominees in the broader context of the Board’s overall composition, with the goal of recruiting members who complement and strengthen the skills of other members and who also exhibit integrity, collegiality, sound business judgment and other qualities that the Nominating Committee views as critical to effective functioning of the Board. The brief biographies below include information, as of the date of this Proxy Statement, regarding the specific and particular experience, qualifications, attributes or skills of each director or nominee that led the Nominating Committee to believe that that nominee should serve or continue to serve on the Board. However, each of the members of the Nominating Committee may have a variety of reasons why he or she believes a particular person would be an appropriate nominee for the Board, and these views may differ from the views of other members. The following is a brief biography as of the Record Date of each nominee and each director whose term will continue after the Annual Meeting.

Nominees for Election for a Three-year Term Expiring at the Company’s 2028 Annual Meeting of Stockholders

Percival Barretto-Ko, 52, has served as a member of the Board since May 2023. Most recently, Mr. Barretto-Ko served as President and Chief Executive Officer at Plexium, Inc., a pharmaceutical company (“Plexium”). Prior to joining Plexium, Mr. Barretto-Ko served in numerous roles, including Chief Business Officer and President U.S., at Astellas Pharma Inc., a pharmaceutical company, from 2005 to 2021. Prior