Why World Health Expo Labs signals a new era for diagnostics
As Medlab Middle East marks 25 years, its transformation into WHX Labs signals a bigger ambition, placing laboratories at the centre of the global healthcare ecosystem
13 February, 2026
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After 25 years as the region’s leading diagnostics platform, Medlab Middle East has evolved into WHX Labs, reflecting a shift in how healthcare now operates. In this interview, Tom Coleman, portfolio director at Informa, explains the strategic thinking behind the World Health Expo identity, the logic of a dual-venue format, and how WHX Labs is positioning laboratories as critical players in policy, investment, and system-wide healthcare outcomes.
Medlab Middle East has transitioned to WHX Labs in its 25th year. What was the strategic thinking behind adopting the “World Health Expo” identity, and how does this reposition the event within the global healthcare ecosystem?
The transition from Medlab Middle East to WHX Labs marks both an evolution and a strategic expansion of purpose. Over 25 years, Medlab established itself as the leading laboratory diagnostics platform in the region. However, the pace of change in healthcare, particularly the convergence of diagnostics, digital health, data, therapeutics, and population health, meant that laboratories could no longer be viewed in isolation.
The World Health Expo (WHX) identity reflects this reality. It positions WHX Labs not simply as a diagnostics exhibition, but as a core pillar within a broader, integrated global health ecosystem. The rebrand allows us to elevate the conversation from products to systems, from testing to outcomes, and from regional relevance to global leadership. Importantly, WHX is a global architecture, not a single event. WHX Labs sits alongside WHX and WHX Leaders as part of a connected platform that spans policy, investment, innovation, and clinical delivery, placing laboratories at the centre of healthcare decision-making rather than at the periphery.
With WHX Labs staying at Dubai World Trade Centre and the co-timed WHX moving to the Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo City, how are you managing the visitor experience across two venues, and what does this format unlock that a single-site event could not?
The dual-venue format is a deliberate strategic choice designed to scale ambition without compromising experience. WHX Labs remains anchored at Dubai World Trade Centre, reflecting its technical depth, established laboratory community, and specialist focus. WHX, hosted at Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo City, provides the scale and infrastructure required for the wider healthcare ecosystem: hospital design, digital health, medical devices, wellness, and policy engagement.
From a visitor perspective, the experience is carefully curated through:
- Integrated registration and digital planning tools
- Scheduled shuttle connectivity
- Clear thematic zoning and agenda alignment
- Distinct but complementary content journeys
What this unlocks is something a single venue cannot: depth and breadth simultaneously. It allows laboratory professionals to engage deeply with diagnostics while seamlessly connecting into the wider healthcare value chain, investors, policymakers, hospital operators, and technology leaders, without diluting either experience.
This format reflects how healthcare actually functions today: interconnected, multidisciplinary, and increasingly global.
The Middle East and Africa laboratory market is projected to grow at a double-digit rate through the decade. Which markets or sub-segments are driving that momentum, and how is WHX Labs 2026 facilitating meaningful commercial and investment connections across the region?
Growth across the Middle East and Africa laboratory market is being driven by a combination of demographic pressure, healthcare reform, and technological leapfrogging. Key momentum drivers include:
- Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) markets investing heavily in diagnostics infrastructure, genomics, and AI-enabled laboratories
- North and East Africa, where public-private partnerships are expanding access to pathology, molecular diagnostics, and reference laboratories
- Rapid growth in molecular testing, genomics, blood screening, microbiology automation, and point-of-care solutions
- Increased focus on local manufacturing, supply chain resilience, and regional distribution hubs
- WHX Labs 2026 is designed to convert this momentum into action. We facilitate this through:
- Curated buyer and investor programmes
- Country-led delegations and ministerial engagement
- Private roundtables linking diagnostics providers with health systems and capital
The objective is not volume networking, but high-quality, commercially relevant connections that accelerate deployment, investment, and scale across the region.
In 2026, AI is increasingly embedded directly into laboratory workflows rather than sitting on the sidelines. What are you seeing on the exhibition floor that signals a shift from AI as decision support to AI as an operational partner in diagnostics?
What is most striking at WHX Labs is that AI is no longer being positioned as an optional layer, it is becoming infrastructure. On the exhibition floor, we are seeing:
- AI embedded directly into analysers, middleware, and laboratory information systems
- Automated sample triaging, prioritisation, and workflow optimisation
- AI-driven quality control, anomaly detection, and predictive maintenance
- Closed-loop systems where AI not only interprets results but actively manages laboratory operations.
This represents a fundamental shift: AI is moving from supporting human decisions to executing operational decisions at scale. For laboratories under pressure from workforce shortages, cost containment, and rising test volumes, AI is increasingly viewed as a co-worker rather than a tool.
WHX Labs provides a critical platform for laboratories to assess these technologies in real-world contexts — beyond pilots and proofs of concept.
With the rise of precision medicine, antimicrobial resistance concerns and the expansion of point-of-care testing, how do you see the role of the traditional central laboratory evolving over the next five years?
The central laboratory is not diminishing, it is transforming. While point-of-care testing will continue to expand, particularly in acute and remote settings, the central laboratory will increasingly serve as:
- The data intelligence hub of the healthcare system
- The backbone for genomics, advanced molecular diagnostics,
and population health analytics - A critical player in antimicrobial stewardship and surveillance
- The integrator of decentralised testing data into coherent
clinical insight
Over the next five years, we expect central laboratories to become more automated, more digital, and more strategically embedded within health systems.
Their value will be measured not just by turnaround times, but by their ability to drive clinical decisions, inform policy, and support preventive care at scale.
WHX Labs exists to support this evolution, by connecting laboratories to technology, capital, policy, and global best practice at a moment when their strategic importance has never been greater.
