Clinic Delays Inspire 25-Year-Old Dubai Founder to Build Neulink Pharmacy Management Startup

Mahmoud Abdelrazag Salih Suliman, a 25-year-old Sudanese entrepreneur born and raised in the UAE, has launched Neulink, a Dubai-based pharmacy management startup born out of prolonged clinic and pharmacy delays that exposed systemic failures in healthcare IT. A single clinic visit that ran from 11:00am to 3:30pm and a separate hospital episode in which a medication was physically on the shelf but listed as out of stock — triggering a 45-minute insurance processing delay — convinced Suliman and co-founder Sreecharan that dispensing and pharmacy workflows needed a modern overhaul.

“The doctor was not diagnosing the patient, he was troubleshooting software,” Suliman said, summing up the frustration that catalysed Neulink. “When we compared our stories, we realised this was not a one-off issue. Dispensing medication is slow everywhere, and pharmacies are running on solutions that were never built for the speed healthcare demands today. That is what pushed us to build Neulink.”

Neulink began development after the founders secured grants from the Ministry of Education and the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority, supplemented by capital from Suliman’s previous venture. Those funds enabled the team to build a minimum viable product and run pilot programs with retail pharmacies. The company’s first external cheque came after joining the Sanabil Accelerator by Orbit Ventures — a milestone Suliman described as pivotal. “Joining the Sanabil Accelerator by Orbit Ventures validated what we are building and gave us access to the Saudi market at a stage where that kind of exposure matters most,” he said.

Suliman’s route to healthcare technology was unconventional. He holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Solar and Alternate Energy and previously designed a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle with a university colleague. He also launched an online auction-based marketplace as his first company and was selected among the top 25 Ideators at the Hello Business Pitch 3 by e&. Entrepreneurship was part of his upbringing: his father runs a law firm in the UAE. Suliman has never held a full-time nine-to-five role, though he completed a three-month internship at a Dubai Electricity and Water Authority subsidiary.

Building a pharmacy-management product meant learning an unfamiliar domain. Neither co-founder had medical training, so the team studied how pharmacies operate, how healthcare entities interact, and how regulation differs across markets. Support from the Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund helped Neulink engage with government and enterprise organisations to pilot and present its technology.

Product focus and early strategy

• Initial funding: grants from the Ministry of Education and the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority, plus founder capital.
• Acceleration: joined Sanabil Accelerator by Orbit Ventures, which opened Saudi market exposure.
• Support: engagement with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund to work with government and enterprise partners.

Neulink’s stated five-year objective is to become the region’s leading end-to-end pharmacy management platform. Suliman urges fellow founders to ground their efforts in real customer needs and to choose co-founders who share the same ambition. “Build something that people want and keep pushing towards it. Doubt is something you will come across, but it should not be the reason you stop,” he said.

As Neulink moves from pilots to wider deployments, its early wins — grant-funded development, accelerator validation and government engagement — set a foundation for scaling across the Gulf, with particular attention on streamlining dispensing workflows and reducing time lost to legacy software in clinics and pharmacies.