compile built-in function can be used to precompile an expression to a code object; this code object can then be passed to eval. This will speed up the repeated executions of the evaluated code. The 3rd parameter to compile needs to be the string 'eval'.

>>> code = compile('a * b + c', '<string>', 'eval')
>>> code
<code object <module> at 0x7f0e51a58830, file "<string>", line 1>
>>> a, b, c = 1, 2, 3
>>> eval(code)
5