AstraZeneca, a major pharmaceutical company, has made a significant agreement with Dizal Pharmaceutical, a Chinese drug developer, to gain worldwide rights to market and develop a new lung cancer treatment called Zegfrovy (also known as sunvozertinib). This deal is worth up to $1.5 billion, with AstraZeneca paying $600 million upfront and potentially another $900 million later if certain goals are met, along with ongoing royalty payments to Dizal.
Zegfrovy is a targeted oral therapy specifically designed for patients with a type of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) caused by mutations in the EGFR gene, specifically exon 20 insertions. It is currently the only approved oral targeted therapy for this condition in both the United States and China for patients who have already received prior systemic treatments like chemotherapy or immunotherapy.
Recent clinical trial results, presented at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, show that Zegfrovy could also be an effective first-line treatment for advanced NSCLC patients with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations. This means it could be used as an initial treatment option rather than after other therapies have failed.
Dave Fredrickson, Executive Vice President of AstraZeneca’s Oncology Business Unit, highlighted the importance of this agreement, stating that it provides a new, differentiated oral targeted treatment for lung cancer patients who currently have very limited options worldwide.
The agreement is expected to be finalized in the second half of 2026, pending standard regulatory and legal conditions.
This deal adds to AstraZeneca’s existing portfolio of cancer treatments, which includes Tagrisso (gefitinib), Imfinzi (durvalumab), Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan), and Datroway (datopotamab deruxtecan), the latter developed in collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo.
Additionally, apart from this agreement, AstraZeneca is investing $15 billion between now and the end of the decade to expand its manufacturing and research and development (R&D) activities in China.
This news follows another recent development in the oncology field, where Novartis acquired Pikavation Therapeutics for $3 billion. Under that deal, Novartis gained rights to a group of investigational PI3Kα inhibitors aimed at treating breast cancer.