The U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council led a healthcare delegation visit to two key innovative healthcare facilities in the U.A.E. focused on clinical trials on Thursday, January 30th on the sidelines of the 50th annual Arab Health Exhibition, taking place in Dubai from January 27-30. The delegation, comprised of the U.S. Ambassador to the U.A.E. Martina Strong and senior executives from U.S. and U.A.E. healthcare and life sciences companies, visited M42’s Omics Centre of Excellence in Masdar City and Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City in Abu Dhabi.
The delegation visited the Omics Centre of Excellence – the region’s largest and most advanced genomics facility in terms of technology coverage, automation, computational capacity, and throughput. The Omics Centre is enabled by M42’s Biobank, which is the largest national biorepository and functions as an integrated foundation of the facility. Delegates learned about how M42 is leveraging the capabilities of the Centre to achieve innovative successes in the healthcare sector, including its viral genome sequencing study on a large sample size, providing greater insights into virus mutations during the second COVID-19 wave in the U.A.E.
The Omics Centre of Excellence is also home to the Emirati Genome Program, which has sequenced the DNA of 750,000 Emiratis and is on track to sequence the entire Emirati population by the end of 2025. Senior business executives were briefed on how the program explores the genetic makeup of Emiratis using cutting-edge DNA sequencing and AI technologies to generate the highest quality and most comprehensive genomic data. The Centre is conducting the sequencing for the program, and using AI tools to analyze the resulting data to gain meaningful insights that can shape healthcare and drug discovery. The research is in collaboration with scientists at the Broad Institute and Harvard University’s International Center for Genetic Disease using Terra, Microsoft’s biomedical research platform.
The delegation also visited Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City in Abu Dhabi (SSMC), one of the U.A.E.’s largest hospitals for tertiary care, established in 2019 as part of the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 to improve healthcare services in the emirate and also a growing center for research and development, and clinical trials. SSMC currently has two phase 1 clinical trials underway focused on longevity and lung cancer, and several phase 2 clinical trials in other areas. SSMC is a member of the PureHealth network and is recognized as a regional centre of excellence for tertiary medical care in several specialties. The hospital boasts 46 specialties and seven departments, including its Neurosciences Institute which opened in November 2024. Dr. Ravi Trehan, the Dean of Research at SSMC, and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Abdulqader Almessabi briefed the delegation and led a tour of the Clinical Trials Unit of the hospital. U.S. military doctors stationed at SSMC as part of the U.S.-U.A.E. collaboration in SSMC’s Trauma, Burn, and Rehabilitative Medicine (TBRM) program also joined the delegation.
With 672 patient beds and 18 operating theatres, SSMC serves the U.A.E. as both a Stroke and Burn Centre of Excellence and the leading Trauma centre in Abu Dhabi. SSMC is one of the region’s first hospitals to offer advanced burn care treatment and state-of-the-art stroke intervention capabilities. The U.S. Air Force medical professionals and U.S. Central Command work closely with the U.A.E. Ministry of Defense to improve U.A.E. civilian Trauma, Burn, and Rehabilitative medicine (TBRM) capacity.
For more information about the U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council’s healthcare and life science programming, please contact Adam Karadsheh at akaradsheh@usuaebusiness.org. To read the 2025 edition of the U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council’s report on U.A.E. Healthcare and Life Sciences Sector, please see here.
