A former Sydney pharmacist who mimicked doctors’ handwriting to defraud the PBS of $19 million to spend on a multi-million-dollar home, an overseas holiday and designer brands, has been jailed for six years.

Hamza Zoghbi and his business partner Jacob Youssef raked in most of the money through false claims for expensive medication formulas prescribed for rare metabolic disorders, according to the District Court of NSW.

Their “light bulb” moment that they could make money from such formulas came in the month after the duo took over the ownership of Pharmacy Depot in Hurstville in 2013.

A patient had lodged a legitimate prescription, Judge Robert Sutherland said in his sentencing decision last week.