London and Damascus

Adnan Alrefai عدنان الرفاعي

Subject-matter expert in point-of-care and decentralised testing, laboratory quality and governance.

I help clinics, laboratories and health systems build testing services that stand up to inspection, from the first device on the bench to a national quality programme. Founder and CEO of POCTIFY LTD and founder of Sihtak, an Arabic health platform. Member of the Institute of Biomedical Science and of the Health Committee of the Syrian Scientific Council.

Portrait of Adnan Alrefai
  • MSc Clinical Biochemistry
  • Member, Institute of Biomedical Science
  • Health Committee, Syrian Scientific Council
  • NHS point-of-care testing
  • Founder and CEO, POCTIFY LTD
POCTIFY LabSyria LaboTest Sihtak

Expertise

What I do

01

Setting up testing services

Taking point-of-care and laboratory services from first device to first patient result: device selection, verification against the manufacturer's claims, SOPs, QC plans, competency frameworks, operator training and sign-off.

02

Quality and governance

ISO 15189:2022 readiness, now that point-of-care testing sits inside the standard. MHRA expectations for accountability, training, QC and records. Audit, internal QC and external quality assessment that produce evidence as the work is done.

03

Decentralised testing

Running testing safely outside the main laboratory, in community services, pharmacies, clinics and outreach settings, with the same standard of control a hospital laboratory would expect.

04

Connected results

Linking analysers to patient records so results, QC and audit trails are captured automatically, with no retyping and no paper logs to chase before an inspection.

05

National quality programmes

Designing laboratory quality programmes for Syria: external quality assessment with unknown samples, a national laboratory register and a stepwise route to accreditation.

A result is only as good as the system around it. The analyser is rarely what fails. The sample, the operator, the record and the evidence that each step was done right decide whether a patient can trust the number.

Adnan Alrefai

Selected work

Where this work happens

Founder and CEO · London

POCTIFY LTD

A UK company that helps clinics, laboratories and diagnostics businesses run testing to a laboratory standard: new service set-up, device verification, SOPs and QC, operator training, ISO 15189:2022 readiness, independent audit and connected devices. Recent work includes helping a London clinic group run connected analysers with QC filing automatically.

poctify.com

Family business · Damascus, since 1987

The Syrian Agency and LabSyria

My family's company has spent decades supplying Syrian laboratories with instruments, reagents and quality control materials, and was the supplier to Syria's national laboratory quality control scheme from the 1990s to 2012. LabSyria is its digital laboratory platform, with free bilingual resources for Syrian laboratories. I now work on rebuilding laboratory quality in Syria, from supply to national quality programmes.

labsyria.com

Led B2B sales · 2020 to 2024

LaboTest Ltd

A UK family company in diagnostics and consumer health devices. I led B2B sales from February 2020 to August 2024, building around £700,000 in revenue across UK, EU and Australian markets through direct sales, e-commerce, Amazon and paid social.

Founder · Syria

Sihtak صحتك

An Arabic-first health app for patients in Syria. People find and book clinics, doctors, laboratories and pharmacies, keep their results and medicines in one place, and get health guidance in their own language.

sihtak.com

Free learning · POCTIFY

POCTIFY Academy

Seven free online courses for people who run point-of-care testing: fundamentals, IQC and EQA, ISO 15189 readiness, connectivity and data, competency and training, quality management, and the evidence base. Each course ends with an assessment and a verifiable certificate.

learn.poctify.com

Research

Evidence for better laboratory services

My research follows the whole testing process, from the request to the action taken on a result, and asks what it takes to measure and improve laboratory quality in health systems recovering from conflict.

  1. Registered protocol · OSF Registries · 2026

    Laboratory quality indicators and external quality assessment performance in conflict-affected countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region: a systematic review and meta-analysis

    Alrefai A. DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/VZG7Q

  2. Preprint forthcoming · Qeios

    Laboratory diagnostics in Syria after conflict: a review of evidence along the testing process

    Alrefai A.

Full record on ORCID

Speaking and events

Talks and conferences

  • October 2026

    11th Scientific Conference of the Syrian Medical Laboratories Authority

    Damascus. Attended.

  • September 2026

    The Bottleneck Fallacy: why local fixes fail global systems

    LabVine webinar, LTS Global. Point-of-care testing as a connected, governed system. Watch the recording. Write-ups on POCTIFY and LabSyria.

  • January 2026

    Innovating Point-of-Care Testing: How Digital Tools Are Transforming Quality and Efficiency

    LabVine webinar, co-presented with Daniel Gundler. Connectivity, AI-assisted insight and digital infrastructure for safer point-of-care testing, aligned with ISO 15189:2022, CLIA and CAP. LabVine announcement

  • October 2025

    Delivering POCT: Diagnostics in the Community

    SBK Healthcare, Manchester. Invited speaker. Event page

Background

From the ward and the bench

I worked in NHS point-of-care testing teams across eight London hospital sites, training and certifying operators, verifying devices before they reached patients and working on laboratory quality governance. Before that I led B2B sales for a diagnostics and consumer health company, and I grew up around my family's diagnostics business in Damascus. That mix of the clinical, the commercial and the practical is what I bring to every project.

MSc Clinical Biochemistry
University of Westminster
BSc Biomedical Sciences
University of Roehampton, First Class Honours
NHS point-of-care testing
Teams across eight London hospital sites: operator training and certification, device verification, quality governance
B2B sales, diagnostics and consumer health
LaboTest Ltd, 2020 to 2024
Founder and CEO
POCTIFY LTD, London

Contact

Get in touch

For advisory work, laboratory quality programmes, research collaboration or speaking, email is quickest.

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