Hayat Biotech
Branding the UAE’s First Biotechnology Challenger
Hayat Biotech was established in 2020 as a joint venture between Sinopharm CNBG, a research-driven pharmaceutical leader, and G42, Abu Dhabi’s pioneering AI and cloud computing company.
Born at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the entity was created to develop and produce the Sinopharm vaccine in the UAE. Brand Lounge was appointed to build a brand capable of representing this powerful bilateral partnership from day one.
Transform Awards 2023
GOLD | Best Tone of Voice
GOLD | Best Visual Identity - Healthcare/Pharma
GOLD | Best Use of Visual Property
SILVER | Best External Stakeholder Relations
The timing could not have been more demanding. Hayat Biotech entered the market in 2020, when public discourse around vaccines was deeply polarized and trust in new healthcare entities was hard to earn.
Introducing a brand-new player into this environment required more than a strong identity. It required credibility built from nothing, in a climate of skepticism.
The challenge operated on several levels simultaneously. The brand needed to establish itself as a credible scientific entity capable of competing alongside long-established pharmaceutical players.
It needed to earn the trust of a general public navigating an unprecedented health crisis. And it needed to carry the weight of a significant bilateral relationship between the UAE and China authentically and with pride, without reducing either party to a supporting role.
At the same time, Hayat Biotech had to stand alone. A joint venture by nature, it nonetheless needed to exist as a fully independent brand with its own purpose, voice, and identity.
Brand Lounge approached the project through deep stakeholder engagement.
A series of collaborative workshops brought together key voices from both Sinopharm CNBG and G42, establishing a shared understanding of where Hayat Biotech stood, where it needed to go, and what would make it genuinely distinct in a crowded, high-stakes market.
The strategic direction was clear: Hayat Biotech would not position itself as another established pharmaceutical presence. It would be a challenger.
A brand that leaned into the tension of a new entity operating in a complex moment, turning uncertainty into a statement of intent.
From that thinking came the brand purpose: challenging the barriers of science to reimagine the future of life. It positioned Hayat Biotech not merely as a manufacturer of healthcare products, but as an organization with a point of view, one committed to pushing the boundaries of what science can achieve and what life can become.
The visual identity was built to tell a multilayered story. The logo, conceived as a Window of Opportunity, embeds four intersecting forces: nature, science, technology, and life. Within it sits a hidden “H” and “B”, a deliberate tilt of 13 degrees that signals a challenger mindset and nods to Chinese cultural optimism, and a form that reads simultaneously as a portal into a reimagined future.
The logotype was crafted in English, Arabic, and Mandarin, a trilingual expression of the brand’s roots and reach that became an ownable asset in its own right. Three colors anchor the palette: Biotech Blue for science, Eco Jade for nature and life, and Pure White as the clinical, contemporary foundation beneath both.
The identity extended into a full system. Iconography was developed in two categories: pillar icons representing Hayat Biotech’s four product areas (Biologics and Biosimilars, Diagnostics, Aesthetics, and Animal Health), and descriptive icons sharing the same geometric DNA as the logo emblem. That emblem also evolved into the brand’s hero supergraphic, its four quadrants housing imagery, content, and graphic elements with structural consistency.
Photography was organized across two themes, Science and Life, and three depth levels ranging from wide environmental shots to extreme close-up and microscopic angles, giving the brand a broad and coherent visual vocabulary.
Brand Lounge designed and built Hayat Biotech’s website as a full digital embodiment of the brand. Following a rigorous strategic exercise to define the site’s purpose and architecture, the team created a user experience rooted in the brand’s ownable grid system, ensuring visual and structural consistency across physical and digital environments.
All website content was written in-house, informed by a dedicated tone-of-voice exercise, ensuring the brand’s narrative was expressed with the same clarity and conviction throughout.
MAXIMIZED IMPACT
Hayat Biotech launched at a defining moment in the UAE’s public health story, entering the market as the country’s first dedicated biotechnology challenger during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The brand gave a brand-new entity immediate presence, credibility, and a clear point of view in a market that demanded all three.
The most significant milestone came with the opening of Hayat Biotech’s production facility at KEZAD in Abu Dhabi, a tangible proof point that the brand’s founding ambition was real. The purpose built for a challenging moment had become the foundation of an organization with the infrastructure to deliver on it.
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