PureHealth has launched the Abu Dhabi Health Research Centre (ADHRC), an integrated clinical research division that consolidates all research activities across PureHealth’s Abu Dhabi hospitals, primary care clinics and advanced laboratories. The centre was formally announced at the inaugural ADHRC Research Conference 2025, held recently in Abu Dhabi and supported by the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH), which convened global experts to accelerate collaboration in clinical research and scientific innovation.
This major milestone positions Abu Dhabi as a leading contributor to global healthcare advancement and underscores PureHealth’s commitment to driving translational research, medical innovation, and precision medicine.
ADHRC brings together the clinical research operations across 16 hospitals, a broad network of primary health clinics and advanced laboratories across Abu Dhabi. The centre covers all stages of the research lifecycle, from protocol design and patient recruitment to regulatory coordination, data analytics and scientific publication.
With more than 100 active clinical research studies, over 300 principal investigators and a scientific team of over 700 scientists, ADHRC partners with government entities, global biopharma and leading academic institutions to deliver comprehensive clinical research in line with the Abu Dhabi’s healthcare priorities.
Her Excellency Dr Noura Khamis Al Ghaithi, Undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH), said: “Harnessing the collective strength of our ecosystem is central to Abu Dhabi’s vision of advancing healthcare through science and innovation. The establishment of the Abu Dhabi Research Centre marks an important milestone in consolidating our research capabilities and driving high-impact clinical studies that improve lives locally and globally. This initiative reaffirms DoH’s commitment to positioning Abu Dhabi as a global hub for life sciences. By empowering partners such as PureHealth to lead high-quality, ethically governed and impactful research, we are accelerating discovery and enhancing patient outcomes.”
Shaista Asif, Group Chief Executive Officer at PureHealth, said: “The establishment of ADHRC marks a defining moment in the UAE’s healthcare journey. By consolidating our research capabilities under one unified centre, we are building on PureHealth’s longstanding legacy in medical research to accelerate the development of breakthrough therapies, improve patient outcomes, and reinforce Abu Dhabi’s position as a global hub for healthcare innovation. This transformation is driven by scientific excellence, operational scale, and our unwavering commitment to enabling longer, healthier lives for all.”
The announcement follows the successful completion of the ADHRC Research Conference 2025, the centre’s first major public initiative. Bringing together more than 350 delegates from government, academia, healthcare and global life sciences, the conference explored emerging frontiers across cell and gene therapy, rare diseases, neurofrontiers, longevity science and regulatory innovation. The event showcased Abu Dhabi’s growing leadership in global clinical research and its commitment to driving scientific discovery at scale.The centre focuses on high-impact areas such as personalised medicine, rare diseases, and cutting-edge healthcare technologies, aligning private-sector innovation with public health priorities. Its infrastructure includes inpatient Clinical Trial Units (CTUs) and the largest outpatient CTU in the Middle East, with capacity to manage more than 800 clinical trial participants visits daily, enabling the execution of complex and high-throughput clinical studies.
Supported by more than 2,500 specialists and consultants across fields such as AI, precision medicine, oncology, and neurology, ADHRC is designed to advance disease prevention, early detection, and long-term disease management.
ADHRC builds on PureHealth’s extensive experience, including support for more than 100,000 participants in clinical studies. The centre assesses advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to process large datasets, predict health trends, and identify new therapeutic targets. These innovative approaches enhance the quality and speed of research, translating scientific discoveries into real-world healthcare solutions. PureHealth is currently conducting clinical research across 22 therapeutic areas and contributes to over 400 publications annually. Notable among its projects is the longevity trial, the largest of its kind in the Middle East. Longevity 2.0, now in its second phase, includes over 3,000 participants and builds on the success of Longevity 1.0, which achieved a 2.2-year increase in healthspan through interventions in exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle.
Backed by several grants from the DoH and multiple awards from both the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) and DoH, PureHealth continues to lead the UAE’s clinical research landscape and is poised to become the central hub for clinical trials and medical research regionally and globally, supporting every stage of the research lifecycle, from study design to publication.