Dr. Saeed Al Amoudi  

Tell us about your organisation and its journey to date.

Al Borg Diagnostics, founded in the year 1998 in Jeddah, KSA, is a state-of-the-art medical diagnostics laboratory that stretches across Saudi Arabia with 128 active sites and a presence in eight countries.

Al Borg Diagnostics is a publicly listed company on the Saudi Stock Exchange, and it is the 13th fastest-growing company in the Kingdom. It is a vital player in the Clinical Diagnostics segment of the healthcare industry offering unique and high-quality patient care services backed by state-of-the-art technology, over 83 international accreditations, over 1,000 doctors and medical staff, and 25 years of market experience. We will continue following the leads of Vision 2030 and its inspiring initiatives to cover the main domains of Accessibility, Value, and Patient prevention and safety.    

How has the organisation evolved to address the challenges of an ever-changing healthcare sector? Please list some accomplishments.

We have undergone rapid evolution with priorities and changes in the past few years. We mainly prioritised digital transformation. Al Borg developed a mobile application to respond to rapidly changing customer needs, and further improved our e-commerce digital platform, which enables us to make better, faster, and smarter decisions, improve the performance of the business, and manage risks. We also inaugurated over 30 additional branches in the year 2022 to give more access to our customers to our state-of-the-art laboratories and collection sites. Al Borg is currently present in eight countries and we plan to continue our local and regional expansion in the years to follow. 

Give us an insight into your portfolio and solutions targeted at the Middle East region. 

Al Borg Diagnostics is going through a major transformation to maintain its leadership role in Diagnostics and Clinical Population Health Management and remain the preferred medical diagnostics partner for all our stakeholders. 

One of the many major steps we have undertaken throughout our 25 years journey in the diagnostics industry, and as part of our endeavour to shift from being a “Testing Laboratory” into a clinical 360-degree provider of diagnostics health and wellness services, is the construction of two Reference Labs that will improve access and increase our range of diagnostics services for the population of Jeddah (five million) and Riyadh (7.5 million). 

The two Reference Labs will be the biggest privately owned clinical diagnostics labs in the Kingdom and the MENA region and will include an Academy, fully automated labs, genetic molecular, genetic biology, newborn screening, digital pathology, electro microscopy and analytical chemistry for occupational health testing. Those two Reference Labs will enable the Kingdom to localise several tests that are currently done overseas.

We at Al Borg are confident that these Reference Labs will serve patients at the highest level of world-class quality and professionalism and in full alignment with Vision 2030 and its inspiring initiatives to cover the main domains — accessibility, value, and patient prevention and safety. 

Tell us about your recent and upcoming investments and partnerships in this field. 

Besides our recent branch expansions (over 30 additional branches in 2022) and the opening of two Reference Labs and Al Borg over 5,000 existing partnerships with public and private hospitals, clinics and other private and public entities, we have ambitious plans to further expand our partnership network in 2023 and increase our service range to include a wider range of tests in the areas of genomics and microscopy, and become a fully digitalised clinical 360-degree provider of diagnostics health and wellness services. 

What will you be showcasing at Medlab Middle East 2023? 

Al Borg Diagnostics launched Al Borg+ Subscription Model mid-last year and a few months later launched three comprehensive programmes under population health management. We will be showcasing our new products and services during this exhibition and give our visitors an in-depth view of the benefits and amazing value they can gain from our new products and services.

In addition to that, we will introduce our franchise model to potential investors who are interested to invest in the medical diagnostics sector of the healthcare industry. 

Please tell us about your plans for the year 2023.  

In 2023, our organisational goal is to continue fulfilling its vision and mission, which is to be the preferred lab diagnostics services provider in any geography and population of MENA. We will introduce new services and enlarge the scope of the R&D department to reduce the cost of reagents.

We will do all lab testing in-house rather than send it overseas as part of our localisation plan. Expanding and increasing partnerships with the private and governmental healthcare sector, engaging in the Private Sector Participation (PSP) initiative led by MoH.