Nearly a decade after spinning out its Chinese research hub to form Dizal Pharmaceutical, AstraZeneca is paying up to $1.5 billion to buy a piece of the pipeline, securing exclusive global rights for the biotech’s oral EGFR lung cancer drug Zegfrovy (sunvozertinib).
The total deal value is split between $600 million in upfront payment, up to $400 million in development milestones and another $500 million tied to certain sales milestones, according to a disclosure (Chinese, PDF) to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Dizal is also entitled to tiered, up to low-double-digit royalties based on Zegfrovy’s global sales.
The deal comes about a month after Dizal detailed positive phase 3 data for Zegfrovy in first-line non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.
In the global Wu-Kong28 trial, Zegfrovy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 35% compared with platinum-based chemotherapy.
Dizal has filed for a label expansion with the U.S. FDA and China’s Center for Drug Evaluation. Zegfrovy got its initial, accelerated approval a year ago for previously treated NSCLC with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations.
When presenting the Wu-Kong28 results, John Heymach, M.D., chair of thoracic/head and neck medical oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, said Zegfrovy offers “the advantage of a single oral agent administration” compared with Johnson & Johnson’s three-drug combination of injected Rybrevant and carboplatin and pemetrexed chemotherapy.
Dizal had been hunting for a Zegfrovy partner ahead of the Wu-Kong28 readout, but potential suitors chose to wait for the data in light of Takeda’s high-profile failure with Exkivity in the same lung cancer setting, Dizal CEO Xiaolin Zhang, Ph.D., told Fierce Pharma on the sidelines of ASCO 2026.
In a potential partner, Dizal was looking for a large company with global reach and experience in marketing targeted therapy, Zhang said at the time.
AZ has both. The company’s Tagrisso for NSCLC with EGFR exon 19 and 21 abnormalities is the world’s best-selling EGFR inhibitor, with $7.25 billion in global sales in 2025.
“AstraZeneca is a leader in treating EGFR-mutated lung cancer, and we are eager to add Zegfrovy to our world-class portfolio of innovative medicines for patients whose tumors carry exon 20 insertion mutations,” AZ’s oncology hematology business chief, Dave Fredrickson, said in a statement Tuesday.
To beef up its EGFR portfolio, AZ also paid $25 million in April to opt in on a preclinical EGFR degrader as part of its collaboration with Pinetree Therapeutics.
“As a leading global company with a strong lung cancer franchise, AstraZeneca will help ensure patients around the world can benefit from this innovation discovered by Dizal scientists in China,” Zhang said in a July 14 statement.
The two companies go way back. AZ formed Dizal as a joint venture in 2017, transferring to the biotech the R&D capabilities of its Innovation Center China (ICC), along with three preclinical drugs in oncology, cardiometabolic and respiratory diseases. Zhang, an AZ veteran who headed up ICC at the time, became Dizal’s CEO.
Even today, AZ is tied with a China state-owned fund in holding the largest stakes in Dizal at a 23.4% share.
The British pharma has been on a dealmaking spree in China after committing $15 billion in its investment in the country through 2030 earlier this year. In two back-to-back transactions announced last week, AZ penned a potential $1.75 billion kidney disease pact with CSPC Pharmaceutical and obtained ex-China rights to Sino Biopharmaceutical’s late-phase challenger to Merck & Co.’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) drug Ohtuvayre in a potential $2.1 billion deal.