Four voices spanning biopharma, vaccines, hospital infrastructure, and injectable devices gathered at the French Ministry of Economy in Paris reached the same conclusion: the Gulf no longer measures international partners by their ability to enter the market. What counts now is what they build once they are inside it.
The panel on France-Gulf healthcare cooperation, which MEA-Business covered as a media partner of the summit, focused less on selling into a market than on the conditions under which lasting partnerships take shape. Four practitioners set out what it takes to operate meaningfully in one of the world’s fastest-growing healthcare economies. Their answer converged on a single theme: trust, built through commitment, capability development, and alignment with long-term national ambition.
Market access is not the challenge
The session, moderated by Johanna Lerfel, Regional Counselor for Health in the Middle East for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, opened with the Saudi healthcare landscape as it stands. Dr. Fadi Albuhairan, Chief Executive of LIFERA, was direct: market access is not the challenge. Any international company can enter Saudi Arabia and find a route to market. The more consequential question is what it does once it is there.
LIFERA’s agenda rests on three verticals: the localisation of biologics, beginning with insulin; genomic sequencing and the downstream application of the data it generates; and gene therapy, that Dr. Fadi announced is planned for 2027. Across all three, his emphasis fell on leapfrogging: absorbing international expertise to advance the sector rather than replicate it. “It’s not about localising only,” he said. “It’s about advancing the agenda.”
What five decades in the Gulf actually teachesStephan Barth, Global Franchise Head at Sanofi for its pneumococcal, meningococcal, and travel vaccine portfolio, spoke from five decades of regional presence. Barth noted, that Sanofi has been present for more than 50 years in the region and among the first multinationals to localise manufacturing in the Gulf, showing proof of a commitment that runs through the entire value chain, from research and development to production. In late 2024 the company signed a further memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the Ministry of Health and Industry, with the chairman of Sanofi’s board present at the signing.For Barth, that seniority signals how seriously the organisation prioritises the relationship. He returned repeatedly to the panel’s broader theme: the bilateral relationship between France and the Gulf is a genuine competitive advantage for French companies, and one they should actively leverage rather than take for granted.
Building with the market, not for it
Bob Issa, Chief Marketing Officer of APEX Health, approached the question from the infrastructure side. The Qatari-based company has expanded from zero to eight hospitals across four countries in three years, with two to three additional markets targeted before year end. His formulation of what makes a partnership sustainable rather than extractive was the most resonant of the session: you build with the market, not for the market.
A 300-bed hospital opening in Algeria within the year will, from its first day, draw its supply chain and talent locally. The logic is not philanthropic, it is strategic. Build capacity faster than local capability develops and you create dependency, which eventually undermines competitive advantage. Build capability without the infrastructure to sustain it and the advantage is forfeit before it matures. The two must rise together.
The rewritten rules of localisation
Stéphane Raharijaona of BD, the pharmaceutical systems company whose glass pre-fillable syringes are core to the injectable drug delivery chain, offered a fifteen-year view of how the regional market has shifted. When BD first began engaging the Gulf, one or two companies were producing injectables locally. Today there are many.
More striking than the volume shift, he observed, is the ambition driving it. Gulf companies are not starting with simple molecules and working up. They are targeting monoclonal antibodies, peptides, and treatments for chronic conditions such as obesity and diabetes, the therapies defining the current frontier of pharmaceutical manufacturing. The opening question in every commercial discussion, he said, is no longer about price or access. It is about quality.
What emerged was a portrait of a market in genuine transition, where the parameters of partnership have shifted. The Gulf does not lack capital, ambition, or a young population ready to develop capability. Albuhairan cited Saudi Arabia’s young demographic as a compelling indicator of long-term potential. What the market increasingly requires from international partners is alignment: on fast-moving regulatory standards, on investing in capability transfer rather than product placement, and on a genuinely shared vision of where the sector is heading.
A new intelligence framework for the KSA healthcare market
It was against this backdrop that Oscar Wendel, Chairman of Global Health Stratalogues, announced a strategic partnership between Global Health Stratalogues, the Global Health Exhibition, and Business France. The partnership establishes Global Health Stratalogues as the Global Health Exhibition’s official Intelligence Partner, with the three organisations helping international companies navigate one of the region’s most complex and fast-moving healthcare markets.The flagship output is a market intelligence report, Roadmap to Entering the KSA Healthcare Market: A Strategic Guide for International Companies. The report will be distributed at the ninth edition of the Global Health Exhibition in Riyadh from 26 to 29 October. An invitation-only Global Stratalogues Roundtable, curated with Business France, will convene senior leaders, policymakers, and innovators for a working dialogue on the Kingdom’s health future.The logic of the partnership is structural. “Our partnerships create an integrated system across three layers,” said Sunita Khatri, Show Director of the Global Health Exhibition. “Business France provides the institutional channel into Saudi Arabia, the GCC’s largest healthcare market. The Global Health Exhibition provides the audience and a deal-making environment. And Global Health Stratalogues provides the media layer that sustains and amplifies those conversations year-round.”
The panel made the case for that report more effectively than any product launch could have. The Saudi healthcare market is not short of opportunity. What international companies consistently underestimate is the sophistication now required to operate there well: the regulatory intelligence, the localisation expectations, the pace of ambition. The France-Gulf health relationship is entering a phase defined less by market entry and more by the architecture of what comes nex
