Abu Dhabi Biobank has agreed to work with drugmaker AstraZeneca on rare disease research and on testing an AI tool that predicts disease risk, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said on Thursday.
The biobank is a joint initiative of the Department of Health in Abu Dhabi and M42, the Abu Dhabi health technology group. It links more than 5 million biological samples with genomic data from the Emirati Genome Program, long-term clinical records and population health data.
The collaboration was announced at the Abu Dhabi Future Health Summit 2026. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The partners will assess whether MILTON, AstraZeneca’s AI-based disease prediction platform, works for regional populations. The initial focus is on type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
MILTON uses routinely collected health data to identify patterns linked to future disease risk, the statement said.
The project will also combine genomic, clinical and other patient data to study rare diseases, which can go undiagnosed for years.
Dr. Fahed Al Marzooqi, chief executive of integrated health solutions at M42, said the biobank was built to be more than a store of biological samples and would help evaluate technologies such as MILTON.
Slave Petrovski, vice president of AstraZeneca’s Center of Genomic Research, said the work would produce UAE-specific evidence to inform national health policy and clinical decisions.
