Product Update

Is Nursem Still in Business? (2026 Update)

Is Nursem from Dragons’ Den still around in 2026? The deal it made, the dragons who invested, and where to buy Nursem today.

Dragons' Den IndexUpdated 6 February 20266 min read

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Antonia Philp built Nursem out of her own experience as a nurse whose hands took a battering from constant hand washing and sanitising, a problem that suddenly mattered to a lot more people once the pandemic hit. The brand is still going, and it has kept its founding promise intact.

The short answer

Nursem is still in business. The skincare-for-hands brand continues to sell its range through its own website and through UK stockists including Boots, and it maintains an active stockist list covering independent boutiques, pharmacies and department stores. It does not sell on Amazon, its own site and named retail partners are the way to buy.

A skincare brand that keeps a full, current stockist page live years after its television debut is showing more than survival, it is showing continued retail demand.

The brand's timing also mattered. Nursem pitched into the Den not long after healthcare workers had become a genuine focal point of public attention, with hand hygiene routines under more scrutiny than ever before. A product built specifically to address the damage that intensive hand washing causes had an unusually clear and topical rationale behind it.

The Dragons' Den pitch

Antonia Philp and her husband Jonny pitched Nursem in series 18, episode 1, bringing a skincare range for hands built specifically around the needs of healthcare workers whose skin takes constant damage from hand washing, gloves and sanitiser, a problem Philp knew first-hand from her own nursing career.

They asked for £75,000 in exchange for 5 percent of the company, a comparatively small equity stake that signalled real confidence in the brand's valuation and growth trajectory.

The deal that got done

Tej Lalvani backed the Philps for the full £75,000 at the 5 percent equity on the table. As the head of Vitabiotics, Lalvani has direct experience scaling health and wellness products through pharmacy and retail channels, exactly the kind of distribution a hand cream brand for healthcare workers would need to grow beyond a niche following.

A five percent stake for £75,000 implies the Dragons agreed the business was already worth well over a million pounds at the time of the deal, a strong vote of confidence for a company still early in its life.

A brand with a built-in cause

Nursem has kept its founding mission central to the business: for every product sold, the company gives a month's worth of free hand cream to a nurse or midwife. That kind of give-back model, tied directly to the founder's own profession, has helped the brand stand out in an extremely crowded skincare market.

The product range has grown to include hand cream in multiple sizes, gift sets and a broader skincare line for dry and sensitive skin, while keeping the original nurse-focused positioning that got the brand noticed in the first place.

Building a give-back model directly into the business, rather than treating charitable giving as an occasional marketing campaign, tends to be more durable because it does not depend on a separate budget line that gets cut when times are tight. Every sale automatically funds the next donation, which keeps the mission and the commercial model pulling in the same direction.

Nursem has also leaned into the clinical credibility angle in its marketing, pointing to input from practising nurses during product development and dermatologically tested formulations, rather than relying purely on the emotional pull of the founding story. For a skincare brand trying to win shelf space against established names, that kind of substantiation matters when a beauty buyer is deciding which independent brand deserves a limited number of listings.

Landing offers from all five Dragons in the room, then still being able to choose the partner with the most relevant industry background, put the founders in about as strong a negotiating position as any pitch on the show reaches, and the retail relationships the business has since built suggest that choice has paid off.

The bottom line

Nursem asked for £75,000 for 5 percent, got exactly that from Tej Lalvani, and continues to sell its hand and skincare range through its own website and stockists including Boots, with its give-back promise to nurses and midwives still part of the pitch.

If you want to try it, Nursem's own website and its listed UK stockists are the way to buy, there is no Amazon listing.

Where to buy Nursem

Still selling as of 6 February 2026. Check today's price and availability.

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See the full Nursem deal breakdown and term sheet →