The News
Abu Dhabi is looking to leverage more than 800,000 DNA samples its artificial intelligence firm G42 has gathered from the local population to build an AI model for developing new drugs and offering precision medicine.
This futuristic vision, put forward by G42 CEO Peng Xiao, is part of broader ambitions by the UAE to become a life sciences hub.
The UAE capital is courting big pharma, people familiar with the matter told Semafor, including UK pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and US firm Eli Lilly, as well as cutting-edge device makers, like New York-based brain-computer interface startup Synchron — a competitor to Elon Musk’s Neuralink — to do clinical trials and manufacturing under the emirate’s Health, Endurance, Longevity, and Medicine initiative, announced this week.
As the Trump administration pulls back billions of dollars in government funding for health care research and disease prevention, the UAE sees opportunity, according to the head of G42’s health unit, M42. “Whatever is not being done in the US, we will do it here in Abu Dhabi,” Hasan Jasem al-Nowais said.