Sprint Bioscience AB is leveraging its founders' expertise in fragment-based drug discovery and structural biology to generate leads against novel cancer metabolism and autophagy targets. The biotech hopes to out-license its therapeutics when the molecules show activity in cells.

While normal cells depend on mitochondrial oxidation to produce energy, cancer cells rely on the less efficient process of glycolysis to produce nutrients, amino acids and lipids needed for proliferation. Cancer cells also can rely on autophagy to survive in response to stress and thereby develop drug resistance.