diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/bridger/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/bridger/package.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..4071046478
--- /dev/null
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/bridger/package.py
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+# Copyright 2013-2019 Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC and other
+# Spack Project Developers. See the top-level COPYRIGHT file for details.
+#
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: (Apache-2.0 OR MIT)
+
+from spack import *
+from os import symlink
+
+
+class Bridger(MakefilePackage):
+    """Bridger : An Efficient De novo Transcriptome Assembler For
+       RNA-Seq Data"""
+
+    homepage = "https://sourceforge.net/projects/rnaseqassembly/"
+    url      = "https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/rnaseqassembly/Bridger_r2014-12-01.tar.gz"
+
+    version('2014-12-01', sha256='8fbec8603ea8ad2162cbd0c658e4e0a4af6453bdb53310b4b7e0d112e40b5737')
+
+    depends_on('boost')
+    depends_on('perl', type='run')
+
+    def install(self, spec, prefix):
+        # bridger depends very much on perl scripts/etc in the source tree
+        install_path = join_path(prefix, 'usr/local/bridger')
+        mkdirp(install_path)
+        install_tree('.', install_path)
+
+        # symlink the init script to /bin
+        mkdirp(prefix.bin)
+        symlink(join_path(install_path, 'Bridger.pl'),
+                join_path(prefix.bin, 'Bridger.pl'))