Stage 2’s first-day programme moved from capital budgets to stem cells, population genomics, inherited blood disorders and locally made medicines, tracing how the region’s clinical and pharmaceutical ambitions are converging on its laboratories.
DUBAI, 26 October 2026 — While Stage 1 of ARABLAB LIVE 2026 dealt with the digital plumbing of the modern laboratory, Stage 2, the conference’s Industrial Labs track at the Dubai World Trade Centre, spent the first afternoon on a different question: what the Gulf’s growing ambitions in precision medicine, cellular therapy and pharmaceutical manufacturing will demand of the laboratories that must support them.
Paying for the laboratory
The track opened at 12:40 with a fireside chat on the economics that sit beneath every scientific ambition, “The business of the lab: managing CAPEX/OPEX, maximising ROI on capital equipment, and cost-reduction strategies.” Moderated by Dr. Khushbu Piyushkumar, it featured Emmanuel Takwi, Leadership and Organisational Excellence Consultant at Starry Health Consulting and Management Services; Hashim Thattarasseri, Laboratory Quality Manager at Dulsco Medical Clinic; and Dr. Mohamed Hasan Shaaban Ragab, Chief Operating Officer of Trust Vision Investments.
Placing a finance session first was a sensible reminder. High-end analysers, sequencers and mass spectrometers carry purchase prices that are often smaller than their lifetime costs in service contracts, consumables, reagents, calibration and staff training. A laboratory that buys capacity it cannot keep busy, or cannot afford to maintain, ends up with expensive equipment and unreliable results.
Stem cells and the manufacturing gap
At 13:10, Aida Mejda Hamdi, Chief Executive of Avicentra, moderated “Regenerative medicine: from lab to biomanufacturing,” with Hiba Khalil, an associate professor of haematology and stem-cell technology and research scientist at the Abu Dhabi Stem Cells Center, and Fatima Abbas Fadhil Al-Jamali, Director of the Stem Cell Lab at American Hospital Dubai.
The title captures the hardest step in cellular therapy. A protocol that works on a research bench must be converted into a process that complies with Good Manufacturing Practice, with controlled cleanrooms, qualified raw materials, validated release testing and full batch documentation, before it can be given to patients at scale. The day closed on a related note at 17:00, when Dr. Hatim Sidahmed, Director of the Cord Blood Bank at M42 Health, presented “Beyond storage: how modern cord blood banks enable regenerative medicine and cellular therapies.”
Genomics for whole populations
At 13:40, Dr. Meenakshi Jain, Laboratory Director at Unilabs, spoke on direct-to-consumer diagnostics and how they are changing the testing landscape. At 14:00, a panel titled “Genomics for population health: tackling inherited disease and cancer risk,” moderated by Ahmed El-Damen, IVF Laboratory Manager at Art Fertility Clinics, brought together Prof. Immanuel Azaad Moonesar of the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government; Pankaj Sohaney, Founder and CEO of Qlabs Clinical Laboratory; Dr. Surabhi Singh, Laboratory Specialist at RASID Lab, M42 Health; and Dr. Tarique Noorul Hasan, Laboratory Supervisor for molecular genetics at PureLab.
The breadth of that panel, spanning health policy, a private reference laboratory, a national-scale health group and a molecular genetics service, reflects the fact that population genomics is as much a governance challenge as a technical one. Large screening programmes raise questions of consent, data storage, counselling capacity and what to do with findings of uncertain significance, alongside the laboratory’s own quality obligations.
That theme carried into the 15:40 presentation by Shaymaa AlHamami, Laboratory Director at Unilabs, on hemoglobinopathy diagnostics. Inherited haemoglobin disorders, notably the thalassaemias and sickle cell disease, are a recognised public-health concern across the Gulf, and premarital screening is one of the instruments the region uses to address them. Accurate laboratory interpretation, combining haemoglobin analysis with molecular testing where needed, is what turns a screening result into sound reproductive and clinical advice.
Accuracy at scale
The 14:40 fireside chat, “Delivering diagnostic accuracy at scale: strengthening clinical chemistry and core lab services for the Gulf’s chronic disease burden,” was moderated by Dr. Salma Akkari, Chemical Pathologist at Unilabs, with Dheepa Manoharan of Thumbay Labs, Dr. Kartik Dave, Head of Laboratory Services at QatarEnergy, and Reena Bhaisare, Lab Director at AVMLabs. Dr. Dave returned at 16:20 to present on generating clinically useful laboratory results, a reminder that a technically correct number has limited value if it arrives late, lacks context, or is misread by the clinician who receives it. At 16:00, Rakshinda Mujeeb, Research Projects Manager at Mediclinic Middle East, addressed how misalignment between laboratories and trial protocols can undermine otherwise sound clinical research, and at 16:40 Maryam Hamedirad, Supervisor of the Molecular Laboratory at Intel Lab LLC, spoke on molecular diagnosis and screening for sexually transmitted infections.
Medicines made closer to home
Perhaps the session with the clearest industrial-policy edge came at 15:10: “From import reliance to regional manufacturing: building world-class pharmaceutical testing and quality systems in MENA.” Moderated by Lulu Manasseer, Senior Research Specialist at Gilead Sciences, it featured Abdelrahman Mousa, Senior Chemical Analyst for cosmetics and food safety at Dubai Central Laboratory, Dubai Municipality; Dr. Kanwal Saeed, Head of Medical Affairs at Versalya Pharma, part of the Italfarmaco Group; and Stephen Alocius, Research Scientist and Manager of the Analytical Development Laboratory at the Himalaya Global Research Center.
Local manufacturing of medicines cannot outrun local testing capability. Every batch must be released against specifications, and the analytical expectations have tightened considerably in recent years. The discovery of nitrosamine impurities in several widely used medicines from 2018 onwards, for example, pushed regulators worldwide to require trace-level risk assessment and testing that depends on sensitive mass-spectrometric methods and experienced analysts.
The picture that emerges
Read as a whole, the Industrial Labs programme sketched a region trying to move several steps up the value chain at once: from importing finished medicines to making them, from treating disease to screening for inherited risk, and from storing biological material to manufacturing therapies from it. Each step relies on laboratories that are well financed, properly staffed and demonstrably competent. On the evidence of the first day’s agenda, that dependency is now well understood.
