Why Localizing Clinical Trials in Saudi Arabia Has Become a Health and Economic Necessity

Dear reader, imagine there is a new medicine that could change the lives of thousands of patients in Saudi Arabia, but it remains locked inside reports and scientific papers abroad, never reaching the hospital where you or your family members are treated. This is exactly where clinical trials come in. They are the bridge that takes a treatment from the lab bench to the patient’s bedside. In Saudi Arabia, talking about localizing clinical trials is no longer just a slogan; it is now a core part of Vision 2030 and the National Biotechnology Strategy, which aim to make the Kingdom a regional and global hub for vaccines, advanced therapies, and precision medicine.

When clinical trials are conducted inside the Kingdom, under the supervision of Saudi researchers and on Saudi patients, the results are more accurate and relevant to our reality. They take into account our lifestyle, environment, genetic makeup, and disease patterns. Localizing clinical trials also means that Saudi patients can gain access to new, innovative treatments years before they are commercially available, in a controlled setting with close medical monitoring and ethics committees that protect participants’ rights and privacy. For this reason, clinical trials in Saudi Arabia are no longer a “scientific luxury”; they are a necessary path if we want to see research results turn into real medicines in our clinics and hospitals.

From this perspective, the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) has launched important initiatives to strengthen this bridge between research and treatment. The center aims to involve large numbers of Saudi patients in advanced treatment protocols over the coming years and to create many jobs in fields such as clinical research, nursing, clinical pharmacy, and data management. It also seeks to significantly increase the number of clinical trials, so that the Kingdom becomes a key player on the global clinical trials map, rather than a passive recipient of results from studies conducted in other countries on very different populations.

To organize this growing activity, the National Institute for Health Research (Saudi NIH) was established in 2023 as a national umbrella to coordinate translational research and clinical trials. The Institute directs funding toward health priorities that matter directly to you: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, rare diseases, and genetic disorders, among others. It also requires that projects align with Vision 2030 and international quality standards. In this way, research is no longer just scattered efforts across different universities and hospitals, but part of a unified pathway that serves public health and turns results into treatment guidelines and health policies that can actually be implemented in Saudi hospitals.

Reports show that the number of active clinical trials in Saudi Arabia has, in recent years, passed the 400 mark, with a market valued at around 200 million US dollars per year, a figure expected to grow as more global pharmaceutical companies and biotech start-ups enter the scene, attracted by the Kingdom’s advanced regulatory environment. The Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) adopted ICH-GCP–aligned regulations early on and requires companies to report any serious adverse events occurring anywhere in the world. This strengthens international confidence in the Kingdom’s oversight and patient safety and encourages companies to include Saudi trial sites in their global development plans, especially in fields like oncology, immunology, and diabetes, which are major health and economic burdens in our society.

From an economic point of view, this direction is tightly linked to the National Biotechnology Strategy, which aims to create thousands of specialized jobs and a significant contribution to non-oil GDP in the coming years. The strategy is building a complete value chain that includes vaccines, biomanufacturing, genomic medicine, and advanced therapies such as gene therapy and CAR-T cell treatments. For this chain to be truly complete, the country must be able to design and run its own clinical trials on its own soil, rather than relying entirely on other countries to test the drugs we ourselves will use in the end.

Dear reader, despite this great progress, there is still vital work to be done. We need more training for professionals in areas such as study design, biostatistics, data management, and adherence to international ethical standards. We also need to raise public awareness about the importance of voluntary participation in clinical trials and clearly explain the safeguards that protect participants’ rights and safety. In addition, most trials are still concentrated in major cities, which means we need to expand networks to include hospitals in other regions, so that access to innovative treatments does not remain limited to a small segment of the population.

In the end, you can look at the localization of clinical trials in Saudi Arabia as a project that brings together both heart and mind. It speaks to the heart because its first goal is your interests as a patient or citizen who wants better, fairer healthcare. And it speaks to the mind because it is a strategic, economic project that builds a national pharmaceutical and biotech industry, strengthens health security, and supports economic diversification. As investment continues in the Saudi NIH, KAIMRC, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, the SFDA, universities, and research centers, and as international partnerships grow, the Kingdom appears to be on its way to becoming a model country that has turned clinical trials from a marginal, limited activity into a central pillar of its health sovereignty and scientific presence on the global stage. And all of that, dear reader, ultimately reflects on you and on the quality of life for you and those you love.