LDC Top 50 2026
Mohammed and Bushra Sheikh
Co-Founders; Chief Marketing Officer and CEO
Personal Homecare Pharmacy (PHP)
Husband-and-wife team Mohammed and Bushra Sheikh started PHP in 2010, helping patients travelling abroad for IVF to source fertility drugs reliably and cheaply in the UK. During the pandemic, they pivoted quickly because fertility was deemed non-essential.
Now PHP is fully diversified and delivers medications to patients’ homes, having repurposed their technology to build integrated portals for the NHS, patients, and nursing partners, alongside an e-prescribing platform that processes 1,200 prescriptions daily. They source “biosimilar” products for the NHS – medications that are just as effective but cheaper than branded alternatives. “We doubled the team to 86 this year and have 60,000 patients,” says Mohammed. “Next year, turnover will hit £60 million.”
The sky’s the limit. We combine technology with people-centred care to redefine care closer to home and raise UK standards. We want to scale this ambition for the global marketplace.”
Q&A
How did you get this business off the ground?
Bushra: I used to work in administration at a doctor’s surgery and Mohammed worked for an online pharmacy. When we started our business, we had just one patient, who’d travelled abroad for fertility treatment. Most pharmacies wouldn’t process an EU prescription or couldn’t source the drugs, but we found a way. There’s a big fertility community online and word spread that we were saving patients hundreds of pounds; soon, one patient became hundreds.
How ambitious are you?
Mohammed: We have invested £4.5 million into opening new premises and now have capacity to serve 250,000 patients, so the sky really is the limit. We have grown 400 per cent over the last three years and we’re just scratching the surface on the cost savings we can bring to the NHS. We want to go international and replicate this model in different countries too. This could be a £250 million-turnover business.
How has technology contributed to your success?
Mohammed: I’m a developer by background. We have a technology arm and believe that software is of great value. We have built a platform for employing nurses that we could bring to the international market, our portals and e-prescribing platform has rolled out and we use AI to read the 1,200 handwritten and printed prescriptions that come in every day and prioritise by need.
