Sigma Pharmaceuticals was founded in 1975 by managing director, Bharat Shah, a Kenyan Asian. Bharat Shah started his career supplying pharmacies to hospitals from a local chemist’s shop. Bharat Shah’s brothers Manish works as an accountant while Kamal works in operations. All major operations are being supervised by his family. He says that the support of his family has helped him build Sigma from a single pharmacy in Watford to a company with profits of £4.5m on a turnover of £200m in the year August 2004. Sigma Pharmaceuticals provides medicines and medical supplies to the UK’s pharmacies and hospitals. Sigma now has access to about 100 generic licences, ranging from antibiotics to cardiac treatments. The Watford firm, still under Shah’s leadership, now serves more than 5,000 customers. It offers next-day delivery on more than 1,000 generic drugs and medical supplies such as surgical dressings. Bharat Shah received Pharmacy Business Editor’s Award 2008 for making affordable generic versions of branded drugs.