Forbes Middle East Reveals The Region’s Top Healthcare Leaders 2025

Forbes Middle East has revealed its annual rankings of the region’s Top Healthcare Leaders for 2025, through two rankings. The first recognizes 50 founders and shareholders redefining the Middle East’s healthcare ecosystem, while the second highlights the 100 executives and CEOs leading its largest and most influential companies.

To curate the two rankings, Forbes Middle East evaluated several factors, including the size of the company, the leader and the company’s impact on the region’s healthcare sector, innovative initiatives and achievements over the past year, the experience of the leader in the sector, diversity of operations, level of transparency, and sustainability and CSR initiatives, and ownership percentage in the company for the shareholders list, among others.

Topping the founders & shareholders list is Shaista Asif, Cofounder and Group CEO of U.A.E.-based PureHealth Group. In 2025, Asif led the completion of PureHealth’s $933 million acquisition of a 60% stake in Hellenic Healthcare Group, Greece and Cyprus’s leading private healthcare provider. Sulaiman Al Habib, Founder & Chairman of Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Services Group (HMG), ranked second, while Said Darwazah, Executive Chairman, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, ranked third.

In the Executives list, Nasser Al Huqbani, the CEO of Health Holding Company (HHC) since January 2023, ranked first. Health Holding is a government-owned entity responsible for investing in and developing the health sector across Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Suwaidi, Managing Director at Hamad Medical Corporation, placed second, and Saeed Jaber Al Kuwaiti, Group CEO at SEHA, ranked third.

In the 2025 ranking, the U.A.E. retained its dominance, being home to 70 out of the 150 entries, followed by Saudi Arabia at 43, while Qatar and Egypt are home to 10 of the entries each, followed by Jordan and Kuwait have four each. Hospital giants lead sector-wise with 46 entries, closely followed by leaders from pharmaceuticals at 38, and healthcare providers at 21.

From the global expansion of Abu Dhabi’s PureHealth to the launch of Saudi Arabia’s first high-potent pharmaceutical manufacturing facility by Riyadh’s SPIMACO, regional players are scaling up. Pharmaceutical and technology leaders have strengthened partnerships with governments, fostering the advancement of national visions and localization objectives.