Dubai longevity ambitions now have a legal address. On June 10, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, issued Law No. (17) of 2026 establishing the Dubai Longevity Authority, a new entity tasked with developing the emirate as the world’s leading hub for regulated longevity, wellness and advanced healthcare, and with opening investment channels into the sector. Cities around the world talk about longevity. Dubai just wrote it into law.
What the authority will control
The remit covers everything between the lab bench and the patient. The DLA will build and enforce a science-led, risk-proportionate regulatory framework for longevity therapies and innovations, licensing and supervising the entire value chain from research and development and clinical trials to manufacturing, delivery and patient clinics. It launches in coordination with the Dubai Health Authority, Dubai Health, Dubai Municipality and the Dubai Future Foundation.
This matters because longevity medicine has a credibility problem worldwide. Unproven supplements share shelf space with peer-reviewed gene therapies, and no major jurisdiction has drawn a clean regulatory line between them. Dubai longevity regulation now offers what global operators have been asking for. The sector is one of the fastest-growing economic frontiers in the world and said the authority will provide regulatory certainty across the entire value chain, from R&D and clinical trials through to manufacturing, delivery and patient care.
The targets are public. The DLA supports the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 and the Dubai Social Agenda 33, which aim to place Dubai among the world’s top three cities for quality of life and to achieve leading global benchmarks in healthy life expectancy.
The ecosystem arrived before the regulator
Walk through Dubai Healthcare City and the sector already operates at clinical scale. At World Health Expo Dubai 2026 in February, the free zone announced two expansions pointing exactly where the DLA now provides oversight. Proto Clinic introduced a personalised, science-led longevity programme combining advanced diagnostics, genomics, lifestyle medicine and continuous monitoring. Dr. Wissam Adada, the clinic’s Founder and Chairman, described the model as a shift from reactive treatment to clinically grounded prevention tailored to each individual.
The second launch reaches further. The Formula, the Middle East’s first AI-driven tele-compounding pharmacy platform, lets patients access custom-compounded medications with personalised dosages through one regulated digital workflow covering consultation, AI-augmented clinical assessment, bespoke formulation and fulfilment. Personalised medicine at scale needs precisely the licensing clarity a dedicated authority brings.
Capital reads the same map. Biohack-it Media Group, founded by IHC Agency CEO Iman Hasan, is raising a $2 million SAFE round to build the largest creator network connecting GCC and international voices across wellness, longevity and entrepreneurship, with $1.1 million already committed. The group’s podcast has passed 1.2 million downloads, its ZENOS Health Summit in Riyadh drew over 1,000 attendees and more than 30 million in digital reach, and early backers include Wisewell founder Sami Khoreibi. Hasan put her reasoning on record, citing the UAE leadership’s evident commitment to innovation, preventative health and quality of life. When media infrastructure, clinical operators and investors converge on the same city in the same year, a sector stops being a trend and starts being an economy.
The numbers behind the urgency
Zurich International Life’s 2026 Value of Life report, built on UAE claims data from 2023 to 2025, shows why prevention now ranks as economic policy. Heart attacks and strokes account for 41 percent of deaths in the UAE, cancer for 26 percent. Serious health events now arrive at an average age of 52, in the middle of peak earning years. Critical illness drives three out of every five claims, and mental health conditions will affect around one in seven UAE residents by 2030 on current projections.
A workforce losing a decade of productive health before retirement undermines every growth target D33 sets. Extending healthspan protects the human capital those targets depend on. Sheikh Mohammed framed the founding logic himself, stating the true wealth of nations lies in their people, and the greatest investment has always been in their health, quality of life, and ability to contribute, create and innovate.
What happens next
For clinics, biotech firms, diagnostics providers and trial sponsors, Dubai longevity licensing now runs through a single authority with a published mandate. The emirate has run this sequence before in financial services, aviation and tourism. Build the regulator, give operators certainty, watch the sector compound.
Sheikh Mohammed set the endpoint without qualification: Dubai will become the world’s foremost hub for longevity, wellness and advanced healthcare, establishing new global standards in health and quality of life. The race to own the longevity economy has a frontrunner, and it filed the paperwork this week.
