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The program targets the protein vaccinia-related kinase 1 (VRK1), which is involved in the cell's response to DNA damage and control of cell division. Elevated levels of VRK1 are correlated with poorer survival in a variety of cancers. VRK1 has also been identified as a possible target protein in cancers that have low levels of the related protein VRK2, such as glioblastoma and neuroblastoma.
In August 2023, Sprint Bioscience licensed the global rights to the VRK1 program to Day One Biopharmaceuticals Inc. In May 2025, the company informed that the licensee Day One Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (Day One), has announced that the two-year research agreement entered into in August 2023 for the VRK1 cancer program is not extended and that Day One does not intend to continue to operate the VRK1 program after the expiry of the agreement. This means that Sprint Bioscience will take back the program.
One of the characteristic features of cancer is its ability to evade the attacks of the immune system. Recent advances in cancer treatment have been the introduction of immunotherapies, drugs that boost the activity of the immune system to fight cancer. However, there is a large proportion of patients who do not respond to this type of treatment. Therefore, there is a strong need to develop new immunomodulatory drugs that can both increase the efficacy of existing therapies and also make insensitive tumors treatable.
Sprint Bioscience was the first in the world to show that small molecules that inhibit the VpS34 protein lead to increased infiltration of immune cells into the tumor. This is a relatively newly discovered mechanism and we aim to be first-in-class with inhibitors of this protein. The increased infiltration of immune cells inhibits tumor growth and has been shown to increase the efficacy of other immuno-oncology drugs. Patients who respond poorly to immuno-oncology treatment today have been shown to have low immune cell infiltration in the tumor.
The NNMT program aims to develop drugs that inhibit the NNMT protein for the treatment of solid tumors.
An important aspect of tumor development is that cancer cells can influence their own environment to facilitate tumor growth. This environment is called the tumor microenvironment and is different from the environment around healthy cells in the body. The ability of cancer cells to reprogram healthy cells in the tumor facilitates tumor growth and may prevent the body's immune system from attacking the tumor.
NNMT is a protein that has been shown to be important for this reprogramming of the tumor microenvironment. Sprint Bioscience is developing inhibitors of this target protein to block the growth of cancer cells while increasing the ability of the immune system to attack them. High levels of this target protein have been found in tumors from glioblastoma, ovarian cancer, breast cancer and colorectal cancer, among others. Patients with high levels of this protein have a poorer survival prognosis.
AML is a serious type of blood cancer. There is an urgent medical need to identify safe and effective therapies to improve treatment outcomes. The DCPS program focuses on a target protein that degrades a metabolite formed during the natural degradation of mRNA. Both small molecule inhibition and genetic inactivation of DCPS affect differentiation and proliferation of several AML cell lines as well as patient samples, in addition, healthy tissue shows little impact of DCPS inhibition. This creates opportunities to offer AML patients a safe and effective treatment option. Sprint Bioscience has identified biomarkers that can predict the effect of DCPS inhibition, providing the opportunity for clinical success by reaching the patients most likely to respond to treatment.