President Donald Trump didn’t share many details in his announcement this week about a massive $600 billion deal with Saudi Arabia, but he did shout out one Michigan company.
A relatively new corporation, Shamekh IV Solutions, LLC earned a mention for pledging to invest $5.8 billion in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
A piece of that includes $500 million for a new Detroit facility that will manufacture intravenous (IV) fluids.
Michigan’s portion of the plans aren’t yet finalized. The company was only recently incorporated in May of 2024, and its online footprint is minimal.
But the company’s chairman Stephen Shaya said when it comes to the investment, “This is not aspirational. I just want you to know it’s going to happen.”
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On Tuesday, May 13, President Donald Trump announced a $600 billion “strategic partnership” with Saudi Arabia to invest in the United States, part of a four-day Middle East trip with a focus on economic agreements.
The deals mentioned were mainly for private investments in the two countries by companies like Google and Uber, along with a nearly $142 billion defense sales agreement with Saudi Arabia.
The investment total has been the topic of some discussion. The deals announced by the White House totaled around $283 billion, but Trump’s administration said those were just “a few of the many” secured. Organizers of the investment forum where Trump spoke told The New York Times 145 deals were signed, totaling more than $300 billion.
Michigan was the only U.S. state to receive a shoutout in Trump’s announcement. He described the plan simply as “a plant in Michigan to launch a high-capacity IV fluid facility.”
In a May 13 press release, Shamekh IV Solutions said the investment is part of a “global plan for a series of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities” aligned with Trump’s May 5 executive order, which aims to increase domestic production of pharmaceuticals by reviewing U.S. regulations.
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The first of the planned facilities will be established in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Shaya said, with groundbreaking scheduled for the fall of 2025. Those plans will be finalized in the next 60 to 90 days, laying the groundwork for the facility in Detroit.
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But when it comes to Shaya’s newly created company, not much information is yet available.
The only contact information listed on its website is a Wilmington, Delaware address. A separate LinkedIn page, and some filings with the state of Michigan, include a Bloomfield Hills address.
The LLC was first incorporated in Delaware on May 20, 2024, by the Corporation Trust Company, a registered agent for businesses.
On Dec. 16, 2024, the company was approved by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) to do business in Michigan.
But Shaya said the LLC is the latest step in a 28-year career journey.
He is the chief medical officer and executive vice president of corporate development for J & B Medical, a family business turned conglomerate that he said “runs the gamut for medical distribution.”
“We sell everything that goes in the hospital,” he said. “Pharmacy, physicians, office supply, equipment, pharmaceuticals to animal health.”
The company, based in Wixom, Michigan was established in 1996, and is owned by his mother, Shaya said.
Its claim to fame, he said, is serving as one of the largest third-party billers of medical products to U.S. homes, reaching 260 million people via insurance contracts.
J & B Medical has a current $20.23 million contract with the state of Michigan through Dec. 31, 2025.
The company supplies medical equipment to several state departments, including the Department of Corrections, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and several veterans’ homes, including in Grand Rapids and Marquette.
A family physician by trade, Shaya is also the managing director of Akkad Holdings, a Bloomfield Hills venture capital firm described online as “investing in healthcare platforms which can leverage J & B’s global distribution channels.”
Shaya said he chose Detroit specifically for this latest investment because it’s where he was born and raised.
“I’ve seen this old industrial Midwest town reinvent itself,” he said, “and with Henry Ford Hospital, the University of Michigan, everything Dan Gilbert’s doing, we saw it as a tremendous opportunity to get back to our community.”
Shaya said he’s working with Gilbert, the billionaire co-founder of Rocket Mortage and real estate firm Bedrock Detroit, to identify a location for the facility, with a goal of breaking ground in the second half of 2026, pending licensing and approvals.
He said the facility will include employee housing and a workforce development component and is likely to create between 300 and 500 jobs, depending on distribution.
Healthcare today is among the largest economies in the world, he said, “and a lot of the products that we get are from abroad. We think we can make them here.”
While the location isn’t yet finalized, the goal is to try and find a Detroit Opportunity Zone, a state designation to encourage investments in low-income communities through tax incentives. Detroit has around 70 designated opportunity zones.
Shaya also plans to look at possible state incentives.
The Governor’s office declined to comment on the proposed investment at this time.
Shaya said the deal was in the works before the start of Trump’s administration.
He was first approached by emissaries from the Saudi royal family in 2023 about medical manufacturing opportunities. The “pivotal moment” was in September 2024, he said, when he was connected with the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C.
“They made a game changing kind of statement,” he said. “They said ‘You don’t need to go to the side door, you don’t need to go to the back door. You don’t need any royal family members, you don’t need any third parties … Come in the front door.’”
Shaya described it as a “breath of fresh air” after years of moving toward business in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has at times had a rocky relationship with the U.S., including after the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey in 2018.
Shaya said the culmination of his professional journey has been to start medical manufacturing, in an effort to combat shortfalls with global medical supply chains exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic and continuing over the past five years.
In May 2025, the American Hospital Association reported to the U.S. Senate that supply chain disruptions from natural disasters, raw materials shortages and production breakdowns has led to 270 drugs on the active shortage list during the first quarter of the year.
That includes shortages of IV fluids stemming from the impacts of Hurricane Helene on a North Carolina production facility.
“I would describe the global medical supply chain as a proverbial eight track tape, and we’re trying to make it the proverbial iPhone,” Shaya said, by beginning to manufacture products in Saudi Arabia and Detroit and ultimately Latin America.
In addition to IV fluids, which Shaya said will be the company’s first venture, the plan is also to expand to active pharmaceutical ingredients, genomics and biosimilars, or lower cost drugs that mimic the effects of those drugs made from living organisms.
As the chairman, Shaya is one of five team members listed on Shamekh IV Solutions’ website, along with CEO Stephen McCormack, a Los Angeles-based biopharmaceutical executive and investor who is listed as a registered agent the corporation’s LARA documents.
Tony Karim, who does not have a job title listed on the company’s website, is another name involved in the project with Michigan ties. In 2002, he launched three party stores in Ann Arbor and owns Premium Packaging, a liquor packaging company based in the Detroit metro area.
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