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A company which listed three pharmacists as directors when it was awarded a £40 million contract by the Conservative Government during the Covid pandemic to supply healthcare workers with personal protective equipment (PPE) has gone into liquidation.

A winding up petition for Medicine Box Ltd was heard in the insolvency and companies court last week and Independent Community Pharmacist understands Labour has submitted a claim to the company’s liquidators to recover some or all of that public money.

The contract, which started on April 25, 2020, stipulated that Medicine Box Ltd, which received a £20 million advance, supply four million pieces of PPE by June 1 that year. The company told ICP it did so by May 31.

Under the contract, Medicine Box Ltd supplied healthcare workers with PPE for £10 per item. It said the £20 million “deposit” was “mainly used to buy materials to produce coveralls and to help cashflow”. The company said it received the other £20 million “upon delivery and inspection” of the products.

At the time, the Conservatives did not reveal whether the contract was put out to an open bidding process but according to the European public procurement journal Tenders Electronic Daily, it received one tender.

Anran Hu, Chenyang Ma and Shu Yien Yeo, who are all registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council as pharmacists, were directors of Medicine Box Ltd at the time.

Hu, Ma and Yeo resigned on June 30, 2021, April 9, 2021, and March 21, 2021 respectively, shortly after ICP broke the story about the awarding of the contract on February 22, 2021. Medicine Box Ltd did not respond when contacted for comment.

Labour would not comment further while its recovery action and liquidation proceedings are ongoing. Companies House will publish the liquidators’ final report once the proceedings have concluded.

Ma and Hu are directors of Medicine Box (Holborn) Ltd which is still trading, according to Companies House. Hu is a director of Ways Pharmacy in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, which is owned by Medicine Box (Holborn) Ltd, while Ma is its superintendent pharmacist.