Dizal Pharmaceutical’s Zegfrovy is approved in the U.S. for locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. For $600 million upfront, AstraZeneca will gain global rights to advance and commercialize the asset.
AstraZeneca is pledging up to $1.5 billion to link up with China’s Dizal Pharmaceutical, securing an exclusive worldwide license to the oral lung cancer drug Zegfrovy. This is the U.K. pharma’s third agreement inked with an Asian company this month.
AstraZeneca is committing $600 million upfront and earmarking up to $900 million in development, regulatory and sales-related milestones, according to a Tuesday morning release. Dizal, based in Shanghai, will also be eligible to collect tiered royalties on global sales of Zegfrovy. The Tuesday announcement did not specify regional carve-outs for the Greater China area, a common stipulation in these China-facing deals from biopharma.
The companies expect to close the transaction later this year.
Zegfrovy is an orally available EGFR inhibitor that received accelerated FDA approval in July 2025 for patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have progressed on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. Zegfrovy is also approved in China for the same indication.
With the Dizal deal, AstraZeneca will gain exclusive global rights to develop and commercialize Zegfrovy. Currently, Dizal is awaiting regulatory decisions in both the U.S. and China that would push Zegfrovy to the frontline NSCLC setting.
In Dizal’s Phase 3 WU-KONG28 study, first-line Zegfrovy significantly prolonged median progression-free survival (PFS), lowering the risk of disease progression or death by 35% versus chemotherapy. The objective response rate to Zegfrovy hit nearly 60% versus 31% in chemotherapy controls.
These findings were published in May in the New England Journal of Medicine and simultaneously presented at this year’s meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
The Dizal deal comes just weeks after AstraZeneca’s previous trip to China, during which it inked another agreement with CSPC Pharmaceutical Group for investigational siRNA medicines designed to treat kidney diseases. For this agreement, the pharma paid $30 million upfront and earmarked up to $540 million in development milestones and up to $1.2 billion in sales milestone payments.
AstraZeneca signed another partnership with CSPC in January, paying $1.2 billion upfront for an early GLP-1/GIP asset for obesity, plus three preclinical weight loss assets and four other programs that will leverage the Chinese biotech’s AI engine. The pharma will be on the hook for up to $3.5 billion in R&D and $13.8 billion in sales-based milestones.
Last week, AstraZeneca turned to Hong Kong–based Sino Biopharmaceutical, betting up to $1.9 billion overall for an investigational PDE3/PDE4 dual inhibitor for respiratory conditions. The asset is being tested for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in China.
