MENA-based Altibbi has come a long way from its humble 2008 beginnings as a printed medical dictionary. HBI chats with co-founder Jalil Allabadi about the region’s largest digital health platform.
Ahead of the World Cup in November the Qatari authorities have issued a proclamation demanding that some 1.5 million Gulf and other international football fans must have healthcare insurance of at least 50 Qatari riyals (€12). This is a boon to Gulf and other international private medical insurers (PMI) of at least QR75 million (€18m).
African healthtech provider Helium Health has acquired Meddy, a Qatar and UAE-based doctor booking platform, with a view to expansion. HBI speaks to Adegoke Olubusi, Helium Health co-founder and CEO, to find out more.
Change is afoot for private hospital operators in the GCC with mandatory insurance rollouts and private sector-friendly reforms offset by squeezed margins and an exodus of foreign nationals. More big US non-profits have followed in the footsteps of their peers Cleveland and Mayo and investors are pouring money into new developments in some markets - but steering well clear of others. Here is our round-up after several weeks interviewing local sources for HBI Intelligence.
The GCC's private hospital sector had a highly volatile second half of the 2010s despite being the target of huge foreign investments in the first. Public data shows huge fluctuations in annual growth in 2014-2019 across Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Dubai, UAE.
Thanks to Covid, Aster DM, the GCC to India clinic, hospital and pharmacy chain, saw a 25% drop in revenue across both geographies in April. May and June have seen improvements with a return to normal expected in the autumn, providing there is no second wave. We look in detail at the impact of Covid in March to June and report full year results to March 2020.
The population of GCC countries is set to fall by up to 10%, according to a report by global forecasting and quantitative analysis group Oxford Economics, as coronavirus encourages the largely foreign workforce to leave. HBI speaks to a source in the Gulf to find out how this might effect the insurance / healthcare market there.
Aster DM has reported strong top-line growth in its FY19 results and plans more asset-light projects in India going forward. We speak to the company's head of investor relations and take a look at how the company faired.
Arab Health never seems to get any smaller. HBI travelled to Dubai and spoke to some of the 84,500 attendees and 4,150 exhibiting companies. But, strip out the hoop-la, and what is really going on at ground level? Here are our main takeaways from the four-day long event:
Healthcare Nova speaks to Erik Koornneef, UAE-Based head of Watson Health at Cognit Technology Solutions, an AI solutions provider established as JV between Mubadala and IBM Watson with the aim to enable the adoption of artificial intelligence in the MENA region.
