‘I saved my mother’s life’: Chinese cancer drug on sale in US after Americans travel to buy it

Global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced Thursday it would begin selling a cancer drug after facing criticism for failing to bring it to the U.S. market more quickly, prompting some Americans to travel to Shanghai to get the potentially life-saving drug first developed by China.

In recent months, desperate Americans have traveled to China to obtain a Chinese-made cancer drug that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration but remained unavailable in the country for more than a year, according to a cancer treatment awareness advocate who made the trip while his mother was battling the disease.

“I am very grateful to all the development that companies have done in China, because it saved my mother’s life,” Max Doppelt, chief executive of Patient Data Vault, a consultancy that connects cancer patients with clinical trials, told the South China Morning Post.

Developed by Chinese company Dizal Pharmaceutical, sunvozertinib is a targeted lung cancer drug designed to treat adults with advanced disease, providing another treatment option for patients.