Dr. Funmi Adewara, MD, MPhil (Cambridge), is a Nigerian-British physician, health-tech entrepreneur and healthcare innovator best known as the Founder and CEO of Mobihealth International, a telemedicine company focused on improving access to quality and affordable healthcare through technology. Her career brings together clinical medicine, pharmaceutical experience, healthcare policy and digital innovation.
Early Career and Education
Funmi Adewara trained as a physician and built her early professional experience within the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS). She subsequently gained experience in the pharmaceutical industry, where she worked as a drug-safety physician. This combination of clinical and pharmaceutical experience gave her an understanding of both patient care and some of the systemic challenges involved in delivering healthcare.
She later pursued advanced training in Bioscience Enterprise at the University of Cambridge, earning a master’s degree in the field. Her Cambridge education strengthened the entrepreneurial and commercial side of her medical background and helped prepare her for work at the intersection of healthcare, science and technology.
Founding Mobihealth International
Adewara founded Mobihealth International after identifying significant gaps in healthcare access, particularly for people living in underserved communities. The company was developed around the idea that technology could connect patients with qualified healthcare professionals without requiring every consultation to take place in a traditional hospital setting.
Mobihealth’s history dates back to 2017, when telemedicine was still relatively unfamiliar to many Nigerians. Adewara has explained that the company had to educate patients, healthcare professionals, regulators and partners about digital healthcare while dealing with limited infrastructure and low levels of trust in telemedicine.
Developing Digital Healthcare Solutions
Under Adewara’s leadership, Mobihealth has developed beyond basic online doctor consultations. The company’s current services include teleconsultation, electronic medical records, e-pharmacy, laboratory diagnosis, rural telehealth programmes and healthcare training.
The company’s platform connects patients with medical professionals for consultations, investigations, prescriptions, treatment and referrals. Mobihealth says its network provides access to more than 20,000 medical experts across Nigeria, the United Kingdom, the United States and other selected countries.
This approach reflects Adewara’s broader focus on using technology to address practical barriers to healthcare, including geographical distance, limited healthcare infrastructure and the shortage of available specialists.
Reaching Underserved Communities
One of the distinctive aspects of Adewara’s healthtech work is its emphasis on extending healthcare beyond major urban centres. Mobihealth operates telehealth kiosks and mobile healthcare units designed to bring digitally enabled medical services to communities that may have limited access to conventional healthcare facilities.
The company’s mobile units combine telehealth technology with diagnostic equipment and other infrastructure. Mobihealth says some of its units include AI-powered point-of-care diagnostic tools, internet connectivity, solar power systems, examination facilities and mini laboratories and pharmacies.
Recognition at the Sanofi AfricaTech Challenge
A significant milestone in Adewara’s entrepreneurial journey came in 2020, when Mobihealth won the Sanofi AfricaTech Healthcare Challenge. Mobihealth was one of five African startups selected as winners from 268 entries submitted from 34 African countries.
The recognition highlighted the company’s technology-driven approach to healthcare and placed Mobihealth among African startups being recognised for developing solutions to healthcare challenges.Mobihealth describes Adewara as the winner of the 2020 Sanofi AfricaTech Healthcare Challenge and notes that it was the first Nigerian startup to win the challenge.
Healthcare Policy and Advocacy
Adewara’s work extends beyond running a healthtech company. She has also contributed to conversations surrounding healthcare policy and telehealth regulation in Africa. TechCabal reported in 2023 that she contributed to policy discussions on healthcare, particularly around telehealth programmes in Africa, and had served as an external reviewer for the African Development Bank. She has also contributed to organisations and forums including the United Nations, World Health Summit and Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
Her involvement in these areas reflects an understanding that successful digital-health systems require more than technology. Regulation, healthcare professionals, infrastructure, financing and public trust also influence whether digital-health solutions can be adopted at scale.
Africa’s Growing Healthtech Ecosystem
Adewara’s work has developed alongside the rapid expansion of Nigeria’s healthtech ecosystem. A 2026 TechCabal Insights report found that Nigeria had 128 active healthtech startups, covering areas such as telehealth, healthcare analytics, digital supply chains, e-pharmacy and digital healthcare financing.
Adewara has firsthand experience of the challenges facing this sector. Reflecting on Mobihealth’s early years, she noted that telemedicine faced low awareness, limited infrastructure, a lack of cohesive policies and low trust in digital healthcare.
Her experience therefore forms part of the broader story of Nigerian healthtech: moving from experimental digital-health solutions toward models that have to demonstrate sustainable healthcare value while operating within Nigeria’s infrastructure and affordability constraints.
Africa’s Business Heroes Recognition
In 2023, Adewara was selected as one of the Nigerian finalists among the Top 20 finalists for the Africa’s Business Heroes competition. TechCabal described her as a British-Nigerian physician and Cambridge-trained bioscience entrepreneur with more than a decade of clinical experience in the NHS and additional pharmaceutical-sector experience. The recognition brought additional attention to her work and positioned Mobihealth within a wider African entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Current Work and Vision
Mobihealth’s current platform has expanded into several areas of digital healthcare, including 24/7 teleconsultations, e-pharmacy, laboratory services, electronic medical records, rural telehealth and AI-enabled diagnostic support.
The company describes its mission as making affordable, quality healthcare accessible through technology. Its model is particularly focused on communities where shortages of healthcare professionals, infrastructure and affordable medical services create barriers to care.
Adewara’s professional journey therefore sits at the intersection of medicine, technology, entrepreneurship and healthcare policy. Rather than approaching healthcare solely from a clinical perspective, she has built a career around exploring how digital systems can complement existing healthcare infrastructure.
Contribution to Nigerian Health Technology
Funmi Adewara represents an important strand of Nigeria’s emerging healthtech sector: physician-led technology entrepreneurship. Her medical background gives her direct experience of healthcare delivery, while her training in bioscience enterprise has supported her entrepreneurial approach to solving healthcare-access problems.
Through Mobihealth, her work has focused on bringing together doctors, patients, diagnostics, electronic health records and digital healthcare services on technology-enabled platforms.Her story also demonstrates the evolution of telemedicine in Nigeria—from a relatively unfamiliar concept when Mobihealth began in 2017 to an increasingly established component of the country’s broader digital-health ecosystem.