In an underground facility below Abu Dhabi’s science and technology district, workers in lab coats run samples through centrifuge machines, slot vials into industrial-sized freezers and tend to rows of photocopier-like genetic sequencing machines.
Those 55 sequencing devices, each one worth tens of thousands of dollars, represent the highest concentration of such equipment outside the US, their owners say. And they signal the oil-rich emirate’s investment in a powerful, and potentially highly profitable, new resource: its citizens’ DNA.
Abu Dhabi’s biggest healthcare company M42, chaired by powerful Abu Dhabi royal and United Arab Emirates national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, says it has sequenced 802,000 genomes, including from 702,000 Emiratis. At just under three-quarters of the local population, that makes it one of the most comprehensive genetic population data sets in the world.
M42 is now seeking to capitalise on this DNA to exploit the growing power of genetic databases to drive breakthroughs in combating disease — and eventually attract drug companies and foster a life sciences industry in Abu Dhabi. George Haber, chief executive of M42’s Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, called the Abu Dhabi-owned Emirati Genome Programme a “gold mine of data”.
The project is part of a broader plan by Abu Dhabi to attract advanced industries, diversify the economy and lessen its dependence on fossil fuel revenues.
A brother of UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Sheikh Tahnoon has wide-ranging influence over the wealthy emirate’s economy and foreign policy with a business empire that includes M42’s parent company G42, the UAE’s most significant AI group.
A ju-jitsu enthusiast reputed to take some meetings while cycling, the 57-year-old is said to take a keen interest in technologies that lengthen life expectancy.
Under the sheikh’s supervision, M42 has invested heavily in genetics. Hasan Jasem Al Nowais, the group’s chief executive, said Sheikh Tahnoon was “very involved” in setting strategy, directing “where we need to go and [saying] ‘This is where the ultimate goal is.’”
Emiratis were reluctant to hand over their genetic code when the project began more than five years ago, but many followed suit when Abu Dhabi royals, including foreign affairs minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, took the blood tests needed for the programme. The pandemic boosted the voluntary collection, with M42 sampling participants for the EGP alongside coronavirus testing.
The genetic trove’s extensive scope has raised hopes that it can help tackle health problems prevalent in the UAE, such as inherited conditions due to intermarriage, as well as broader international health threats. Other facilities, such as the 19-year-old UK Biobank of about 500,000 people, have yielded crucial advances on illnesses from obesity to Parkinson’s disease.
Although M42 executives stress that the three-year-old company’s efforts to commercialise are still in early stages, the group’s strong ties to the government and Abu Dhabi’s ruling family give it a unique advantage.
M42 was formed in 2022 from a merger of the healthcare assets under sovereign investor Mubadala and Sheikh Tahnoon’s G42. At the time, Mubadala took a 45 per cent interest in the combined group, according to its bond prospectus. M42 declined to give ownership details.
The health group’s assets include hospitals, such as Abu Dhabi’s Cleveland Clinic. Though M42 generates almost half of its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation from overseas, the company was initially dependent on government contracts, such as delivering the EGP.
M42’s massive collection of data also spans Abu Dhabi’s unified patient records system, its Biobank and environmental data from monitoring waste water for disease outbreaks. It uses artificial intelligence to analyse information across the data sets, senior operations director Albarah El Khani said.
Separately, it conducts premarital screening for Emirati couples, which the government encourages due to concerns over intermarriage.
Although Abu Dhabi’s health department owns the anonymised genetic information and grants access to it, M42 collects and stores the data as its custodian. No other company has been given approval to use the data, M42 says. That gives M42 an effective monopoly for now.
M42 says it has strict protocols to protect participants’ data and prevent misuse. But campaigners have long accused Abu Dhabi, an absolute monarchy, of compromising privacy and wielding broad surveillance powers.
Some American lawmakers have also been wary of its links to China. G42 has been dogged by accusations of links to Chinese entities blacklisted by the US over alleged repression of minorities, including the Beijing Genomics Institute.
To appease the US, which it relies on for access to cutting-edge semiconductors, G42 has said it divested from Chinese companies and would remove all Huawei hardware from its systems. M42 said it did not have ties to BGI or use its equipment.
Other countries such as Iceland have created large genetic databases, but the UAE’s is among the most comprehensive. The UK Biobank includes whole genome sequencing for 500,000 participants, although the nation’s population is more than 68mn.
Paul Jones, chief executive of M42’s Omics Centre, said the UAE’s insights into such a large proportion of the population meant researchers could track a genetic mutation across multiple generations. Although 90 per cent of the UAE’s population are foreigners, Emiratis still mostly marry within the community.
“You can monitor disease across grandparents, parents, children, and you can start to plot,” said Jones. “From a research perspective, it’s gold dust in terms of giving you an insight into mutations that are relevant for specific disease”.
Pharmaceutical companies’ “perception of what would be really valuable is not just access to the data set, but access to the [health] system itself”, said Jones, who is the former chief executive of Genomics England.
No deals have been signed, but M42 group executives say the company is talking to international pharmaceutical and biotech companies about using the data and there are precedents for how they could sell access.
The UK Biobank, for example, has struck agreements with life sciences businesses to fund analytical work using its data, such as a project looking at how changes in the levels of proteins in the body are linked to diseases. In return, the companies receive exclusive access to the results for nine months before they are made public.
Chief executive Nowais said M42 had started sequencing genomes from expat UAE residents to broaden the genetic storehouse, which he said could increase its attractiveness to companies that would want to use it to develop drugs.
M42 is in talks to work with governments in other countries and recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Uzbekistan to partner on its genome programme. M42 would not control the data, but “what we will have access to is insights from the data”, Nowais said.
That means M42 can tell pharmaceutical companies, “‘we have sequenced X number of people in Kenya and Malaysia and Indonesia, and we have diversity within our data’”, said Nowais. “‘But if you want more complex patients, want diabetic patients, I have the Abu Dhabi population.’”
Additional reporting by Michael Peel in London
