MedPal now offers the only integrated medication management platform combining robotic dispensing, electronic records, and AI-powered support across the care home sector
LONDON: MedPal AI plc (AIM: MPAL; FRA: Z1N), the AI-native digital health and pharmacy group, has announced the acquisition of eMARx, a UK provider of electronic medication administration record software for care homes and pharmacies.
The deal, valued at approximately £474,000, represents what MedPal’s leadership describes as the “missing piece” of its Health OS strategy, creating a unique end-to-end medication management solution for the UK’s sixteen and a half thousand care homes, a statement said.
The Missing Piece
eMARx serves as the digital system of record for medication administration in care homes, replacing traditional paper charts with real-time, barcode-verified tracking of every dose administered to every resident. The platform enables complete auditability and significantly reduces the risk of medication errors.
Jason Drummond, Founder and CEO of MedPal, commented: “Medication is the heartbeat of every care home, and with eMARx we now own the digital layer where it actually happens: at the bedside, dose by dose, in real time. Combine that with robotic dispensing at Sarus Court, our supply relationships and Juno, our agentic AI companion, and MedPal can offer Britain’s care homes something we believe nobody else can: one integrated service that gets the right medicine to the right resident at the right time, every time.”
A Complete Health OS
With this acquisition, MedPal now controls every step of the medication journey. The Group already operates NHS Distance Selling Pharmacy hubs at Sarus Court in Runcorn and Swaffham, alongside a B2B care home pharmacy supply business anchored by Care UK, the New Health clinic, and Juno, the Group’s agentic AI health companion built on Anthropic’s Claude. eMARx completes this architecture inside the care home.
The Sarus Court robotic dispensing hub was purpose-built for high-volume automated dispensing using BD Rowa technology, which operates at a reliability of 99.9 per cent, and has substantial spare capacity ready for the national roll-out that this acquisition enables.
Financial & Strategic Highlights
The acquisition brings immediate value to the Group. For the year ended 31 March 2026, eMARx generated unaudited revenue of £739,231, representing a 19 per cent increase year-on-year and approximately trebled over three years, with profit after tax of £106,273 and a gross margin of approximately 82 per cent. The business operates on a recurring subscription model and counts national care groups including Care UK, pharmacy groups, and a long tail of independent care homes among its customer base.
Under the terms of the transaction, the initial consideration of approximately £380,000 was satisfied as to £133,066 in cash from the Group’s existing resources and as to £247,000 through the issue of 7,272,834 new ordinary shares in the Company. The purchase price is subject to a customary completion accounts adjustment, currently expected to be approximately £94,000, settled 35 per cent in cash and 65 per cent in further new ordinary shares at the same price per share, bringing the total consideration to approximately £474,000.
All consideration shares are subject to lock-up and orderly market arrangements of twelve months each, and all seven eMARx shareholders, including five members of the operating team, become locked-in MedPal shareholders, aligning the team with the Group’s roll-out plans.
Application will be made for the admission of the consideration shares to trading on AIM, expected on or around 23 July 2026. Following admission, the Company’s enlarged issued share capital will comprise 777,113,860 ordinary shares.
A Structurally Growing Market
The UK care home sector represents a significant and structurally growing opportunity. The market comprises approximately sixteen and a half thousand care homes with around five hundred and thirty thousand registered beds and close to half a million residents, and was independently valued at approximately £27 billion in 2025 and 2026, with demand projected to require tens of thousands of additional beds over the next decade.
Medicines sit at the centre of care home operations and of NHS spending. The NHS in England spent £21.6 billion on medicines in 2024 and 2025, of which approximately £10.3 billion was prescribed in primary care. Within that, approximately 331,000 care home residents aged sixty-five and over receive NHS prescriptions each month, with the average resident prescribed 6.8 medicines per month and more than one in five on ten or more medicines.
NHS England estimates care home residents account for around 250,000 emergency hospital admissions each year, of which 35 to 40 per cent are considered avoidable, with over-medication and medicines errors recognised as key drivers. Digitising and integrating the medicines pathway, from prescription to robotic dispensing to barcode-verified administration at the bedside, directly addresses this challenge: fewer errors, fewer missed doses, better oversight for clinicians and families, and lower cost for the NHS.
The Commercial Opportunity
While Care UK anchors MedPal’s care home business today, the eMARx acquisition transforms the scalability of the Group’s care home operations. eMARx gives the Group a software-led route into thousands of additional care homes beyond its existing relationships, with each new eMARx home becoming a qualified prospect for pharmacy supply, and each supplied home becoming a natural adopter of eMARx.
Typically, eMAR services represent a discrete cost borne by care homes. By incorporating eMARx into its Health OS, MedPal will be able to offer it at a discount or even zero cost, provided the Company’s pharmacy services are used exclusively by the care home. This is expected to improve the Group’s pharmacy revenue and its care home customer acquisition and retention rates.
The Directors believe this creates a unique proposition in the UK care home market: the only provider able to offer care homes an integrated eMAR platform, pharmacy supply from the Company’s robotic dispensing hub, and its agentic AI support, in a single service designed to deliver better outcomes for residents and greater reassurance for their families.
Team & Integration
All seven eMARx shareholders, including five members of the operating team, become locked-in MedPal shareholders, aligning the team with the Group’s roll-out plans. The business employs six people, all of whom are joining the Group.
John Richardson, Founder of eMARx, stated: “eMARx has been my passion since the day we wrote the first line of code, and as I approach retirement my priority was to find the right custodian for the platform, our customers and the team that built it. In MedPal we have found exactly that. The combination of eMARx and MedPal’s Health OS will deliver a powerful offering for the care home market, and joining the wider MedPal AI team is a great opportunity for our development team, who I am delighted will share in that future as MedPal shareholders.”
Looking Ahead
MedPal’s strategy is clear: build a single, AI-native health OS connecting every step of a patient’s medication journey. With eMARx, the company now has a complete architecture that addresses the full medication lifecycle, from prescription to robotic dispensing to barcode-verified administration at the bedside.
As Drummond concluded: “Sarus Court was built for exactly this moment: we have the capacity, the platform and now the software to scale, and we intend to use all three. Most importantly, better medicines management means fewer errors, fewer avoidable hospital admissions and better outcomes for residents and their families. That is what our Health OS is for.”
