By Andrew Silver
SHANGHAI, July 14 (Reuters) – Shares in China’s Dizal Pharmaceutical rose 20% on Tuesday, after the AstraZeneca spin-off announced that the drugmaker would pay $600 million upfront for global rights to one of its treatments for a type of lung cancer.
Sunvozertinib, also known as Zegfrovy, is approved in the United States and China as a locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer treatment for adults whose tumors have a rare genetic mutation. The first-line treatment for those patients largely relies on chemotherapy, according to Dizal, which was established in 2017.
About 77% of all lung cancers are non-small cell lung cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
A study of a late-stage multinational clinical trial with 324 patients found the primary endpoint, progression-free survival, was a median of 10.3 months for patients on Sunvozertinib versus only 7.5 months for those on chemotherapy, though the overall survival data was immature.
Under the deal with AstraZeneca, Dizal is also eligible to receive up to $900 million in additional payments tied to clinical development, and regulatory and sales-related milestones, it said in a statement.
AstraZeneca will gain global development and commercialisation rights to Sunvozertinib.
“With this agreement, we will bring a differentiated, oral targeted treatment to these patients with limited options across the globe,” Dave Fredrickson, an executive vice president at AstraZeneca, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for AstraZeneca declined to comment on plans for further global clinical trials, or whether it would seek approval for the drug in additional countries.
In 2025, Dizal’s operating revenue from Sunvozertinib was about 576 million yuan ($85 million), according to its annual report, up about 85% from the prior year.
(Reporting by Andrew Silver in Shanghai; Editing by Rashmi Aich, Kirsten Donovan)
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