AstraZeneca announced on July 14 a new agreement with China’s Dizal Pharmaceutical, committing up to $1.5 billion for an exclusive worldwide license to the oral lung cancer drug Zegfrovy. This marks AstraZeneca’s third partnership with an Asian company this month.
The U.K.-based pharmaceutical company will pay $600 million upfront and could provide up to $900 million more in development, regulatory, and sales-related milestone payments. According to the announcement, Dizal will also be eligible for tiered royalties on global sales of Zegfrovy. The companies did not specify any regional carve-outs for Greater China, which are often included in such deals.
Zegfrovy is an orally available EGFR inhibitor that received accelerated approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July 2025 for patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer who have progressed after platinum-based chemotherapy. The drug is also approved in China for the same use case.
With this agreement, AstraZeneca gains exclusive global rights to develop and commercialize Zegfrovy. Dizal is currently awaiting further regulatory decisions in both the United States and China that could expand Zegfrovy's use into frontline treatment settings for non-small cell lung cancer.
In clinical trials, specifically the Phase 3 WU-KONG28 study, first-line treatment with Zegfrovy significantly prolonged median progression-free survival compared to chemotherapy alone and reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 35%. The objective response rate was nearly 60% versus 31% among those receiving chemotherapy; these results were published in May in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at this year’s meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
The transaction between AstraZeneca and Dizal is expected to close later this year.
