*Hospitals

Our clients are  world-class hospitals in the Middle East, situated in Saudi Arabia, United Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait.

Most of them are internationally accredited, are functioning according to the highest medical standards and have preferred links with local & Western Universities.

A hospital, in the modern sense of the word, is an institution for health care providing patient treatment by specialized staff and
equipment, and often, but not always providing for longer-term patient stays.  Its historical meaning, until relatively recent times, was “a place of hospitality”. Today, hospitals are usually funded by

a) the public sector,

b) by health organizations, (for profit or non-profit),

c) by health insurance companies or charities, including by direct charitable donations.

Type of hospitals:

*General hospitals

The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which is set up to deal with many kinds of disease and injury, and typically has
an emergency department to deal with immediate and urgent threats to health. A general hospital typically is the major health care facility in its region, with large numbers
of beds for intensive care and long-term care; and specialized facilities for surgery, plastic surgery, childbirth, bio-assay laboratories, and so forth.
Larger cities may have several hospitals of varying sizes and facilities.

*Specialized hospitals

Types of specialized hospitals include trauma centers, rehabilitation hospitals, children’s hospitals, seniors’ or geriatric hospitals, and hospitals
for dealing with specific medical needs such as psychiatric problems and other disease categories.

*Teaching  hospitals

A teaching hospital combines assistance to patients with teaching to medical students and nurses and often is linked to a medical school, nursing school
or university.

*Clinics

A medical facility smaller than a hospital is generally called a clinic, and often is run by a government agency for health services or a private partnership of
physicians (in nations where private practice is allowed). Clinics generally provide only outpatient care services.

*Pharmaceutical industry

The pharmaceutical industry develops, produces, and markets drugs licensed for use as medications. All new medicines introduced on the market are the result of lenghty, costly and risky research and development conducted by pharmaceutical companies. The latest study released recently estimated the average cost of researching and developing a new chemical or biological entity at €1,059 million. Meeting these costs demands ever-increasing investment efforts, which in the pharmaceutical industry’s case, are almost entirely financed from its own resources.High failure rates, the significant cost of clinical trials and the amount of resources needed to get approval by regulatory authorities are the primary reasons for this exponential increase of R&D costs. Promising new substances frequently reach an advanced stage of clinical research before results demonstrate that they must be abandoned. The chances of new substances becoming a marketable medicine remain relatively small: several studies have produced figures ranging from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 10,000.

Lifecycle of a new medicine Pharmaceutical R&D, which provides the foundation for the treatments of today and the cures of tomorrow, is becoming increasingly complex, lengthy and risky, due to a combination of scientific, regulatory and political factors.

From the research laboratory to the pharmacy shelf, the process of bringing a new medicine to patients is now estimated to take an average of 10-13 years.

• Of every 5,000 molecules tested, only 250 promising new substances will enter preclinical testing; 10 will enter clinical development and only 1 will be approved by the regulatory authorities and make it to the market.
• Half the medicines that reach the final stage of clinical trials fall at that hurdle and once on the market, only 3 out of 10 marketed medicines produce revenues that match or exceed average R&D costs before losing patent protection and facing stiff generic competition.

From molecule to medicine – a high risk processOnce a new compound has been identified in the laboratory, medicines are developed as follows. During rigorous pre-clinical testing, pharmaceutical companies conduct laboratory and animal studies to assess the chemical, biological and toxicological properties of the compound against the targeted disease.

It is only when these tests show favourable results that a company can proceed with clinical trials, which are experiments conducted within very strict ethical and technical rules on human beings:

• In phase I, the medicine is tested on a few (about 20 to 100) healthy volunteers under strict hospital control.
• In phase II, controlled trials are carried out on volunteer patients (approximately 100 to 500) to gather information on the compound’s efficacy (relation between dose and effect) and safety (identification of possible adverse side effects).
• More comprehensive studies are carried out in phase III (usually involving 1,000 to 5,000 voluntary patients in clinics and hospitals), especially on any long-term effects. The proposed new treatment is also compared with other treatments already in use.

Once  marketing authorisationhas been granted, the use of a medicine is still carefully monitored in accordance with approved current medical practices. Source: EFPIA

*Medical Devices

A medical device is a product which is used for medical purposes in patients, in  diagnosis, therapy or surgery. If applied to the body, the effect of the medical device is primarily physical, in contrast to pharmaceutical drugs, which exert a biochemical effect. Medical devices differ from drugs in that they do not achieve their intended use through chemical reaction and are not metabolized in the body.

The medical device manufacturing sector are highly diversified industries that design, develop, register, produce and market a wide range of products designed to diagnose and treat patients in healthcare systems worldwide. The key products that comprise the medical devices industry, include surgical appliances and supplies, surgical and medical instruments, electro-medical equipment, in-vitro diagnostic substances, irradiation apparatus, dental and ophthalmic goods.

The global market of medical devices reached roughly 209 billion US Dollar in 2006 and is expected to grow with an average annual rate of 6 – 9% through 2010.

*Biotechnology

Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living things in engineering, technology, medicine, and other useful applications.  Modern use of the term includes genetic engineering as well as cell- and tissue culture technologies.

Biotechnology draws on the pure biological sciences (genetics, microbiology, animal cell culture, molecular biology,biochemistry, embriology, cellbiology) and in many instances is also dependent on knowledge
and methods from outside the sphere of biology (chemical engineering, bioprocess engineering, information technology, biorobotics).

Biotechnology has led to the development of antibiotics. In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the mold Penicillium. His work led to the discovery and purification of the antibiotic penicillin. In 1940,
penicillin became available for medicinal use to treat bacterial infections in humans.

In medicine, modern biotechnology finds promising applications in such areas as:

• drug production
• pharmacogenomics
• gene therapy
• genetic testing: techniques in molecular biology detecting genetic diseases.