Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in South Korea are conducting clinical trials to overcome drug resistance in conventional non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) therapy. These companies are developing 4th-generation lung cancer treatments that have proven effective in patients with drug resistance after the use of 1st-to-3rd-generation targeted therapies.

Conventional EGFR-positive NSCLC therapies are categorized into 1st-generation AstraZeneca’s Iressa (gefitinib) and Roche’s Tarceva (erlotinib), 2nd-generation Boehringer Ingelheim’s Giotrif and Pfizer’s Vizimpro (dacomitinib), and 3rd-generation Yuhan Pharmaceutical’s Leclaza (lazertinib) and AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso (osimertinib).