Why the UAE is a frontrunner in delivering precision medicine

Kinjal Sureshchandra Zaveri, CEO of One Health, delves into why precision medicine has the potential to alter the healthcare landscape in the region.?

By Jennifer Bell at Digital Ink Media

The UAE is leading the way in adopting advanced technologies to develop precision medicine and personalised healthcare, according to the CEO of one of the country’s leading medical and diagnostics devices distributors.

Across the globe, medical leaders are taking proactive steps to reduce the prevalence of certain diseases, enable early intervention and identify the most effective treatments. Increasingly, they are turning to precision medicine, which enables medical decisions, practices, and products to be customised to the individual patient according to their genetic footprint, lifestyle, and environment.

Kinjal Sureshchandra Zaveri, CEO of One Health, a subsidiary of PureHealth Group – the largest integrated healthcare platform in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said that when it comes to precision medicine, the country is a frontrunner in the global race to adopt individual-specific diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. The UAE, he says, recognises the vast potential of customised medicine to meet patient needs, in turn increasing the average lifespan of people and improving their quality of life. This is PureHealth’s core vision about longevity which they believe revolves around a healthier, happier life, driven by personalised medicine, artificial intelligence (AI), and predictive diagnostics, that in turn will create a significant difference in people’s lives.

“Precision medicine will be playing a very important role [in healthcare] moving forward, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states will definitely adapt to this,” Zaveri said. “The UAE, in particular, I think, is far ahead compared to any other country in the world.”

This, the CEO elaborated, can be demonstrated by the UAE’s National Genome Strategy, one of the most ambitious programmes yet to analyse the genetic model of a country’s population. Under the strategy, the aim is to collect one million samples from citizens via cheek swabs or blood samples. From each sample, automated sequencing machines will be able to produce a profile of that individual’s genome, their complete set of genetic material.

This information may be able to accurately detect which diseases the person is more vulnerable to or indicate which medications would work most effectively on them.

“The UAE is the first country today already undergoing a whole genome sequencing program for its citizens,” Zaveri said. “The very essence of this project is to understand the genomic language of every citizen in this country, which will form the basis of personalised medicine going forward.

“So, I believe the UAE in particular will be one of the first countries to adopt and embrace this change of personalised medicine or precision medicine.”

For PureHealth, the group is establishing a datadriven technology platform that will enable them to engage with the entire population, baseline their health, provide them with their digital twin based on their genome sequencing, and monitor their health in real-time through wearables and smart homes.

PRECISION MEDICINE & AI

But – as with any technology – comes certain challenges, said Zaveri. Especially when medicine – like many sectors across the world – is on the brink of an AI revolution.?

He explained that successful precision medicine adoption involves a holistic approach; data analysis, including AI, which, in turn, involves algorithms and the history of a patient.

AI and precision medicine work together to refine medical management. However, this also brings about technical and ethical challenges while software trained on historical data sets can produce a raft of unintended consequences once they start interacting with unpredictable humans and fast-changing time, he pointed out.

As a result, Zaveri believes that AI can never be a substitute for a healthcare professional on the frontline.

“This area, I think, is a little challenging and debatable,” he said. “Especially with the talk of AI. It is useful, but it is debatable too. Because a lot of relevance is given to the historical data available. A lot of algorithms are based on historical data… this could be challenging moving forward because things are changing.

“What was true yesterday may not be true today. If you base your solutions on historical data, sometimes it could be debatable - you may deviate in terms of care.”

He continued: “So, does AI and machine learning provide a high degree of value proposition? Of course, yes. But this one-to-one intervention, this human-to-human intervention is always going to be the most important part of patient care.

“Yes, [AI] will support and will enhance and it will probably improve efficiencies, but it won’t be the final solution for sure. This is how I look at it today, unless things change again, in the next couple of years, or a decade.”

A SIGNIFICANT LEAP IN HEALTHCARE

Regardless, precision medicine has the potential to alter the healthcare landscape, according to Zaveri. “The way it is positioned today – it is basically an approach to tailor-make the disease treatment for an individual,” he said. “I mean, the way you have food or goods delivered at your home – this is exactly what you need if something would happen in the healthcare domain too. “Every individual is different in terms of genomic sequence. By moving towards tailor-made personalised treatment where you will know exactly what molecules will work for this treatment for this individual which will make a huge difference in terms of course treatment first, probably cost, and most important turnaround time.

“Getting the genomic data – incorporating other aspects like the molecular makeup, environment, lifestyle, etc – will make it more interesting and hopefully more, more better in treating those diseases and ailments.”

With an extensive network across the UAE – with an in-country customer base of more than 300 healthcare providers – One Health, part of the PureHealth portfolio – provides end-to-end medical solutions for healthcare service providers.

The company’s focus is on looking at ageing as an epidemic and using the latest treatments, technologies, and preventive and social strategies to help people lead optimal, healthier lives. It aims to introduce technology driven, personalised, preventive healthcare solutions that focus on increasing the average lifespan and improving the health span in the UAE.

“PureHealth is the largest healthcare group in the region,” said Zaveri. “So, we manage and operate a significant amount of healthcare facilities in the UAE.

And we are the largest?integrated platform focusing mainly on making healthcare convenient, affordable, and transparent. Being part of PureHealth, One Health is a vertical which focuses on bringing all new technologies of value proposition services to the country, in the healthcare domain. And as an entity, we are committed to delivering best in class solutions to all healthcare providers.”

At the helm of One Health, Zaveri said what excites him the most about his day-to-day role is the vast potential of precision medicine in the healthcare landscape today – and tomorrow.

“As CEO, a key focus is to keep a tab on all these changes happening [in] delivery systems, looking at various solutions and technologies penetrating the market now and, in the future, and making sure that One Health will be one of the relevant players in bringing all these things to all our healthcare providers,” he stated. “With AI coming into the picture, data analysis is becoming very, very relevant. Things are changing much more rapidly compared to what used to happen, say 10 or 15 years back. So, the whole definition of diagnostics will change moving forward.”

With diagnostics being primarily a preventive care tool, when it comes to curative care, the potential of this is genomic testing and follicular testing will become more relevant, said Zaveri. “The way it is advancing – the speed at which it is advancing – excites me the most and the number of solutions getting created worldwide research being done in this area.”

The PrecisionMed Exhibition & Summit 2023 (PMES), he added, will provide a perfect platform to engage with other stakeholders and experts in the field and join in the conversation about the wealth of opportunities precision medicine can offer. “Precision medicine is going to play a big role moving forward in how we are delivering care to the patients,” he said. “In particular, [when it comes to] personalised diagnostics, pharmacogenomics, data analysis - this is where One Health is relevant today, and we can bring all these things which are very, very important to bring precision medicine to the country.”?

Interested to know more?

To learn about how stakeholders are redefining healthcare in the GCC and MENA region, read the full PrecisionMed International May 2023 magazine online?here.

Published in the May 2023 Magazine/Show Guide Edition