Post by Executive Forecast

Bridging the Gap: NewBridge Pharmaceuticals and the Regional Platform Model in MENA As part of Executive Forecast's Gulf & Levant coverage, we spoke with Joe Henein, President & CEO of NewBridge Pharmaceuticals, about building a regional commercialization platform across a market of 600 million people — and why the model is increasingly relevant as global pharma recalibrates its footprint. Founded in 2010, NewBridge was built on a specific structural observation: smaller biotech companies with breakthrough therapies lacked the infrastructure to access MENA markets, while the region carried significant unmet need in neuroscience, oncology, immunology, and rare diseases. Sixteen years on, the thesis has been validated. Big pharma is actively consolidating its direct presence globally — exiting affiliates across Eastern Europe, Latin America, and MENA — creating space for regional operators with scaled capabilities. Henein also pointed to a generational change in what medicines can do: therapies that cure rather than manage, including gene and cell therapies priced as single lifetime interventions. "We positioned NewBridge as the one-stop solution, a regional platform focused exclusively on innovative drugs, to bridge this gap and build an organization to offer all the services needed to commercialize, distribute, and provide access to their brands." — Joe Henein, President & CEO, NewBridge Pharmaceuticals Read the full conversation: https://lnkd.in/eibH4m_H #ExecutiveForecast #NewBridgePharmaceuticals #MENAHealthcare #GulfHealth #PharmaIndustry #RareDiseases #Oncology #Neuroscience #EmergingMarkets