Consultancy, advisory and interim medical affairs
I am a physician and medical affairs manager who has launched three therapies across six Gulf markets, including the first acute hepatic porphyria diagnosis and national approval in Oman. I work with companies, agencies and distributors on the medical side of rare disease, orphan drug and gene therapy portfolios, and I am open to permanent medical affairs roles in the Gulf, Italy and France.
6 Gulf markets. 20+ orphan and speciality products. 18 partner companies. 100+ key opinion leaders across the Gulf and MENA.
6
Gulf markets covered
3
therapy launches led
20+
orphan and speciality products
100+
KOL network, Gulf and MENA
In short
I am Mahmoud A. Z. Abdelaal, MBBCh, a physician by training and a medical affairs manager by practice. My work sits between the clinical evidence and the market: medical plans, launch readiness, scientific exchange, advisory boards, evidence generation, and the field medical work that turns a therapy area into a conversation between the company and the physicians who treat those patients.
I have carried medical affairs for rare disease, orphan drug and gene therapy portfolios across the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, as the medical counterpart to regional distribution partners, and I manage a team of six in medical affairs alongside more than ten sales and medical representatives trained on the science. My clinical background is haematology, sickle cell disease, acute hepatic porphyria, cystic fibrosis, neuromuscular disease and nephrology, and I also work at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi as a medical interpreter and patient communication specialist.
That combination is the point. Rare disease launches fail on the medical side more often than on the commercial side: the patient pathway is invisible, the physician network is small, and the evidence has to be explained person by person. I have done that work in a region where it had not been done before.
Capabilities
Each of these is work I have done for a partner company, a distributor or a launch programme, with the record behind it.
Build the medical plan for a therapy area or a brand, from evidence gaps to the activities that close them, and keep it running from pre-launch through launch into the years after. I held the medical plan for a congenital leptin deficiency therapy from pre-launch through launch across the Gulf, and for acute hepatic porphyria through a national first.
Medical plan held end to end for two orphan launches
The medical work that has to be finished before a launch: the evidence story, the physician map, the advisory programme, the training, the compliance route, and the readiness of everyone who will speak about the therapy. I have led three therapy launches and worked the months before them, including the programme that reached national approval in Oman in six months.
3 therapy launches led, 6 months to national approval in Oman
Find the physicians who actually treat the condition, understand the referral pathway around them, and build the advisory relationship that survives the launch. I have built and still hold a network of more than one hundred key opinion leaders across the Gulf and MENA, and ran a launch conference that brought thirty four of them together, funded through non-pharmaceutical sponsors.
100+ KOL network, 34 KOLs at one launch conference
Turn the questions clinicians ask into an evidence plan: registry participation, real-world data, local data collection, publications support and the honest presentation of what the data does and does not show. I work with clinical data as a reviewer and as a user, and I completed the CITI Program research ethics and good clinical practice curriculum, one hundred and eighteen modules in total.
118 compliance and ethics modules completed, credential IDs recorded
Train and speak: advisory meetings, hospital sessions, workshops, scientific exchange with specialists, and internal training so the field team can hold a scientific conversation instead of a promotional one. I have trained more than sixty physicians on clinical data and mechanism of action, thirty of them on acute hepatic porphyria as part of the Oman programme, and more than ten representatives and product specialists.
60+ physicians trained, 30+ on acute hepatic porphyria
Field medical coverage, scientific exchange with treaters, insight generation from the field back into strategy, and the management of the people who do it. I manage a medical affairs team of six and work with more than ten field representatives and product specialists, so I know what the role needs and what a field team has to be able to say.
6 medical affairs staff managed, 10+ representatives trained
The medical evidence and the clinical argument behind coverage decisions: who the patients are, how many of them there are, what the therapy changes, and what the treating physician will say when asked. I supported the programme that secured government coverage for eligible cystic fibrosis patients in Oman, after which more than three hundred patients were in treatment within a year.
300+ cystic fibrosis patients in treatment within a year, government coverage secured
The work that only happens when medical, commercial, regulatory, access and supply move together: launch planning, insight sharing, compliance boundaries that are clear and workable, and a single evidence story told the same way by everyone. I have coordinated that across eighteen partner companies, from Alnylam, Vertex and bluebird bio to PTC, Incyte and Calliditas, and represented the medical function in front of commercial and access colleagues.
18 partner companies represented across six therapy areas
Medical governance that holds under audit: promotional versus non-promotional boundaries, adverse event reporting routes, advisory board documentation, and the ethics that make a medical function credible with regulators and physicians alike. My training record is one hundred and eighteen modules with credential identifiers an employer or an agency can verify.
118 modules, CITI Program, identifiers recorded
Rare disease lives or dies on the pathway: how a patient is found, who refers them, what the people around them understand, and how long the whole thing takes. I have worked that pathway in congenital leptin deficiency, where three patients were on treatment within three months of launch in an ultra rare condition, and in cystic fibrosis, where the programme reached more than three hundred patients within a year.
3 congenital leptin deficiency patients treated within 3 months of launch
Tell me what you are hiring for
Engagements
I am open to permanent medical affairs roles in the Gulf, Italy and France, and to consultancy, advisory and interim work in the same markets.
Medical Affairs Manager and above: Associate Director, Medical Director, Senior MSL and Medical Advisor roles, in the Gulf, in Italy and in France. Egyptian national, resident in the United Arab Emirates, with work rights in France and Italy.
A medical plan review, a launch readiness assessment, a KOL map for a therapy area, a patient pathway analysis, or a second opinion on the medical side of a business case. Fixed scope, fixed timeline, written output.
Launch support through the pre-launch and launch window, an advisory board programme, an evidence and real-world data plan, or scientific training for a field team entering a new therapy area.
Cover for a medical affairs function during a vacancy, a restructuring, or the period between a hire and a launch, on a part time, contract or interim basis.
Markets
Six markets, six regulatory routes, one shared physician community. The work is relationship heavy and evidence light, so the medical function carries more of the launch than it does in Europe. I have covered all six, from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Riyadh and Muscat, and I live in Abu Dhabi, which is why I can be in front of a physician in the region within days rather than weeks.
A market where Medical Affairs is used untranslated in industry and where the field medical role is the informatore scientifico. Rare disease and gene therapy have real centres of gravity in Milan, Rome and Lombardy, and the language requirement is a hard gate: Italian at C1 and English. I hold work rights in Italy, I am learning Italian at A1 through intensive courses, and I am open to Italy-based roles as the language develops.
A market with a large medical affairs community, strong academic centres in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, and a language requirement that is explicit in almost every posting. I hold work rights in France, I speak English at C1 with Arabic as a native language, and I work with French language material as part of my regulatory and scientific reading. I am open to France-based roles and to French companies hiring for the Gulf.
Questions
Recruiters, agencies and companies tend to ask the same handful of things. These are the honest answers.
The work that sits between the clinical evidence and the commercial plan. Building and running the medical plan, making sure the evidence story is accurate and defensible, mapping and engaging the physicians who treat the condition, running advisory boards, generating and interpreting real-world data, training the field team, and keeping all of it inside the compliance boundary. In rare disease most of that is personal: the treating network is small and the evidence has to be explained one clinician at a time.
I start with the patient pathway and the physician map, because in the Gulf the visible market is usually smaller than the real one. Then the medical plan, the evidence gaps, the advisory programme and the readiness of the field team, in that order, working backwards from the launch date. I have done exactly this for three launches across six markets, including a national first in Oman that went from first diagnosis to national approval in six months.
Both. A large part of my career has been the medical counterpart to regional distribution partners, representing eighteen companies from Alnylam, Vertex and bluebird bio to PTC, Incyte and Calliditas. That means I am used to being the medical function inside a partner organisation, not only inside a manufacturer.
The Gulf: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, where I live and work now. I also hold work rights in France and Italy and I am open to roles there. My clinical and regulatory reading covers all three regions, and my English is C1 with Arabic as a native language.
Rare disease is the core of it: congenital leptin deficiency, acute hepatic porphyria, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and IgA nephropathy, across orphan drug and gene therapy portfolios. Rare disease medical affairs is a specific craft, because the population is small, the referral pathway is the bottleneck and the evidence is often thin at launch. That is the environment I work best in.
Yes, and I have three times, including a national first. The medical side of a launch is a sequence: the evidence story, the physician map, the advisory programme, the training, the compliance route, then the field readiness. All of it has a date attached and most of it cannot be compressed, which is why I start from the launch date and work backwards.
As the boundary that makes the function credible rather than as an obstacle. Promotional and non-promotional work kept clearly apart, adverse events reported through the right route without delay, advisory arrangements documented, and no claim made that the data does not support. I completed one hundred and eighteen modules of research ethics and good clinical practice training with the CITI Program, with the credential identifiers recorded so an employer can verify them.
Both. Permanent medical affairs roles in the Gulf, Italy and France, and consultancy, advisory, project or interim work in the same markets. Interim work is often the most useful thing a company can buy: medical affairs cover across a vacancy or across the months between a hire and a launch.
Send me a message with the therapy area, the market and the timeline. If it is a consultancy or project question I will tell you within a reply whether it is something I do and what it would involve. If it is a role, LinkedIn has the full record and the documents behind it. I answer from my own address, and your details stay with me.
Yes. Medical Affairs Manager and above, including Associate Director, Medical Director, Senior MSL and Medical Advisor roles, in the Gulf, Italy and France. I am based in Abu Dhabi and I am open to relocation for the right role in Italy or France.
A therapy area, a market and a timeline is enough to start. If you are an agency or a distributor, tell me which product and which country. If you are hiring, tell me the role and the market. I answer from my own address, usually within a day, and I will tell you honestly if it is not something I do.
Your message goes to my inbox. My address stays private until I reply.