Diagnostics · Community pharmacy
Tuli Health
A London company that turns high street pharmacies into places where blood gets drawn for somebody else’s test. It started in the pandemic selling COVID-19 kits. By 2026 it says it runs 180 live phlebotomy hubs across the United Kingdom.
Forty eight needles in an afternoon
On Sunday 20 September 2026, forty eight pharmacy staff spent an afternoon at Shrewsbury Town Football Club learning to take blood, practicing on arms before live draws on each other. All forty eight passed. The event was Community Pharmacy Shropshire’s annual general meeting, whose morning session had been about money; the afternoon was venepuncture.
The trainers were from Tuli, a small London company that has spent five years building what that afternoon was for: a national network of shops where a nurse is not, but a phlebotomist now is.
Why a pharmacy needs another line of business
At the end of March 2025 there were 9,999 community pharmacies in England, down from 10,837 at the start of 2021, on NHS Business Services Authority data reported by Pharmacy Business. Between January 2024 and March 2025, 274 closed, more than five a week.
Meanwhile the NHS asked pharmacies to do more clinical work. Pharmacy First launched on 31 January 2024 with more than 10,000 pharmacies registered, letting pharmacists complete episodes of care for seven conditions, from shingles to urinary tract infections.
Note what is not on that list. Blood testing. Pharmacy First put clinical rooms, patient group directions and consultation habits into 10,000 shops without commissioning a single diagnostic panel.
That hypertension service is where the frustration shows. Pharmacies in England delivered 10.6 million blood pressure checks between October 2021 and June 2026, The Pharmacist reported. In September 2026 the specification tightened so eligible patients can have one check every five years. Baba Akomolafe, superintendent pharmacist at Christchurch Pharmacy, told a conference audience: “Blood pressure checks are worthless now, so I am starting to think more about private services.”
Tuli sells the private service.
A doctor and an engineer, a decade in London
Jiawei Chun Li incorporated Tuli Health Ltd on 11 February 2021, and was its only director until Jialu Tu joined the board on 23 May 2022. Li holds an MD PhD from University College London. Tu read maths at Imperial College London and, per the company’s Y Combinator page, spent close to ten years in financial services first.
The company went through Y Combinator in Summer 2021 with a team of four, launching that August with a pitch about wanting to walk down the street to get healthcare rather than rely solely on the NHS (see quotes, below).
The first commenters asked the question that has followed the company ever since: would results reach NHS records, would the NHS pay? The answer then and now is no. This is a private pathway running alongside a public one.
COVID kits, then other people’s patients
The original product was COVID-19 testing. The YC listing still carries the 2021 numbers: launched in June, 147 pharmacies onboarded, over 7,000 diagnostic tests, and $1.3 million a month in incremental revenue generated for the pharmacies, not for Tuli.
What survived the pandemic was the network, not the test. Tuli’s business is now largely wholesale: other companies send it patients. Its support site tells customers to follow “your referral clinic,” naming three: Medichecks, Hurdle and Medefer. Medichecks is more customer than rival; its programme manager Ben Neal is quoted on Tuli’s site saying the partnership expanded “our network of CQC phlebotomy clinics across the UK.”
There is a consumer front door too, including a thirty marker men’s profile covering hormones and liver function. And there is a content operation whose most prominent articles are about Ozempic and Wegovy: private GLP-1 prescribing creates a standing need for monitoring bloods that NHS general practice is increasingly unwilling to absorb.
Who is responsible for what
The word diagnostics does heavy lifting in Tuli’s marketing, because Tuli does not make or sell a test. Its published model is a venous draw at a partner pharmacy, then the sample is posted or couriered to a partner laboratory for analysis. The regulated in vitro diagnostic device is the assay the laboratory runs, and the device obligations sit with its manufacturer or supplier, not Tuli. The company names no laboratory and publishes no accreditation number for one.
What Tuli owns is everything before the lab: consent, identity, the draw, labelling, packaging and transport. That is the pre-analytical stage, where most laboratory error happens, and it is why the Shrewsbury training day is the product as much as the software is.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Company registration | TULI HEALTH LTD, number 13195637, incorporated 11 February 2021. SIC codes still include 74300 translation and interpretation alongside 86210 general medical practice. | Public record |
| CQC registration | Registered 25 November 2022 as an independent doctor service, location 1-13944411302, Lewisham. Regulated activities include treatment of disease or injury and diagnostic screening. Dr Jiawei Chun Li is registered manager and nominated individual. | Public record |
| Inspection claim | Tuli’s site says “We’re CQC registered & our hubs are regularly assessed.” The register carries one location, lists no partner pharmacy under it, and states: “We have not inspected this service yet.” | Differs from register |
| Accounts | Five sets of total exemption full accounts, FY2022 to FY2026, last filed 2 September 2026. No turnover or auditor’s report is public. | Public record |
| Ownership change | Both founders ceased as persons with significant control on 30 November 2025. Li had held over 50% of voting rights and could appoint or remove directors. Tu was re-notified 8 June 2026, backdated to 10 August 2021, at 25% to 50%. No statement of capital since March 2021. | Public record |
| Capital | Named in the Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures 2025 Lab cohort, announced 12 September 2025, which invests £250,000 per EMEA startup. | Independent |
| Network size | LinkedIn claims “300+ partner pharmacies and over 160+ phlebotomy hubs” reaching “over 5 million people.” A later post says 180 live hubs. The website says over 100 locations. A consumer page says “Pick from 300+ London locations.” | Company figures disagree |
| Laboratory chain | No laboratory partner named publicly, and no UKAS accreditation or MHRA device registration in Tuli’s own name found to September 2026. | Not found |
| Training delivery | Forty eight pharmacy staff trained and assessed at the Community Pharmacy Shropshire AGM, confirmed in that committee’s own post. | Committee-confirmed |
Read plainly, the operational story checks out and the financial one does not: a real network exists, local committees invite Tuli to train their members, and a bank has put money in, but an outsider cannot verify how large the network is (the company publishes four different figures), what it bills, who runs its laboratory work, or why both founders left the control register the same day in November 2025 with no share filing to explain it.
What to watch
- A statement of capital at Companies House, since nothing has been filed since 16 March 2021.
- A new person with significant control accounting for Li’s voting rights, held until 30 November 2025.
- A first CQC inspection, still absent almost four years after registration.
- Named laboratory partners and their accreditation scope, letting a buyer judge the analytical half of the chain.
- Whether independent prescribing, joining Pharmacy First from autumn 2026 per Community Pharmacy England, pulls diagnostics into NHS commissioning and resets private pricing.
In their words
“We’ve lived in London for a decade and while we appreciate the NHS, we also wished for a world where we could walk down the street to get healthcare.”
Jiawei Li and Jialu Tu, Launch YC post, Hacker News, August 2021 · Founders
“I’m curious as to how you will integrate into the existing UK healthcare system.”
Commenter on the launch thread, Hacker News, August 2021 · Independent
“Blood pressure checks are worthless now, so I am starting to think more about private services.”
Baba Akomolafe, superintendent pharmacist, Christchurch Pharmacy, reported by The Pharmacist, September 2026 · Independent
“We are proud to back this global cohort of changemakers that are delivering scalable solutions to a range of pressing business and societal challenges.”
Jessica Alsford, Chief Sustainability Officer, Morgan Stanley, September 12, 2025 · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordTULI HEALTH LTD overview, officers, filings and PSC register
- Public recordTuli Health Ltd registration, location 1-13944411302
- Public recordLaunch of NHS Pharmacy First advanced service, PRN01108
- Public recordPharmacy First service page
- Public recordManagement and use of IVD point-of-care test devices
- Public recordCommunity pharmacy in England, briefing CBP 9854
- Independent33 Innovators Join Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures Cohort
- IndependentPharmacies deliver more than 10.5 million blood pressure checks
- IndependentPharmacy closures: England’s total falls below 10,000
- IndependentCollaboration expands point-of-care testing across UK pharmacies
- IndependentPrivate Plebotomy in Community Pharmacy
- IndependentTuli: Advancing Pharmacy Practice
- IndependentLaunch YC: Tuli Health, discussion thread
- Aggregatortuli.health funding rounds and investors
- CompanyTuli Health company page
- CompanyTuli LinkedIn about text and hub count posts
- Companytuli.health home, end-to-end and network pages
- CompanyFAQs, referral blood tests
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
