Mazen Hassanain

CEO of SVAX, Vice President at Fakeeh Care Group

Mazen Hassanain is Vice President for Research and Innovation at Fakeeh Care Group and founder and Managing Director of SaudiVax, the Saudi biotechnology company developing and manufacturing affordable, halal-certified vaccines and biopharmaceuticals to build the Kingdom's pandemic preparedness and pharmaceutical security in line with Saudi Vision 2030. He is a Professor of Surgery, a consultant in hepatobiliary and solid-organ transplant surgery, and an Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. He earned his medical degree with honours from King Saud University in Riyadh and completed his surgical residency and transplantation fellowship at McGill University in Montreal, holding a PhD in translational research and fellowships from the Royal College of Physicians of Canada and the American College of Surgeons. Before founding SaudiVax, he served at the Saudi Ministry of Health from 2012 to 2014 as Director-General of the General Administration of Research and Studies, where he led development of the Kingdom's national health research strategy and established the Health Services Research Center, the Central Ethics Review Board and the National Biobank Strategy.