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Emmanuel “Manny” Ayanjoke was destined to be a pharmacist.
He grew up in Sagamu, a town just outside Lagos, Nigeria. Both his father and his grandfather owned pharmacies.
“I grew up in that environment,” he told me. “I always knew I wanted to be a business owner of some sort.”
His education took him to the United States for college and now he’s the sole owner of Altev Community Pharmacy in Avondale. The 2,100-square-foot space is located at 3559 Reading Road in the north tower of the Avondale Town Center.
He and his two other employees quietly opened in December. Ayanjoke wanted to make sure he was fully up and running and all his systems were seamless before making the big announcement.
“A lot of that time was just getting all those things in place,” he said.
So far, he said the community has welcomed him with open arms.
“They’re like ‘Wow, I am so excited you guys are here. We have a pharmacy here in Avondale we can walk to, plus it’s Black-owned,’” Ayanjoke said. "It changes the dynamic of how patients can be open to their providers.”
Ayanjoke decided to make the jump from working in other independently owned pharmacies to build his own in 2022. He saw a letter from the Ohio Pharmacist Association (OPA) essentially asking people interested in opening a pharmacy to apply for assistance with starting their business through pharmaceutical company McKesson as part of the organization's commitment to addressing health inequities.
“It was quite a rigorous process because you were competing with almost 200 applicants,” he said.
After about a year-long process, he was selected.
“I own the store 100%. They (OPA) just helped with getting it started.”
Avondale was chosen because it's what Ayanjoke calls a "pharmacy desert." It's very important to Ayanjoke that lower-income communities have access to the health care they deserve. Back in Africa, his family built a legacy of helping the underserved, a legacy he's proud to continue here in Cincinnati.
“It was so profound that in a neighborhood like Avondale, right in the heart of Cincinnati, it didn’t have an actual pharmacy and people had to go several miles taking the bus,” he said. "A quick 10-minute trip by car is easily up to a 45-minute trip on a bus, which is a huge challenge for people who have multiple health complications.”
Ayanjoke’s pharmacy accepts all Ohio Medicaid insurance plans including Buckeye Health Plan, CareSource, Molina Healthcare, Paramount Advantage and UnitedHealthcare Community Plan.
Altev also offers a wide variety of services including:
- Dispensing of brand and generic prescribed medicines with discount price options for human and pet drug therapy
- Medication savings, manufacturer discounts when applicable, and recommendations to the uninsured, under-insured and those with high co-payments and reimbursements
- Prescription drug transfers, fills and refills in-store, by phone, online and using the Altev Community Pharmacy mobile app
- Express local delivery and shipping
- Medication adherence packaging to ensure accurate use
- Medication therapy management, simple compounding and synchronization to address overall health and well-being
- Medication formulary analysis in partnership with prescribing providers and healthcare practitioners.
The pharmacy also offers patients and their families, which includes pets, free access to discounts on prescription medications.
“We see every single patient as a patient, not as a number. We're really trying to change the way pharmacies operate,” he said. “We’re putting the incentives on where it should be, which is actually caring for the patient and not just dispensing the pill.”
According to Ayanjoke, America is overmedicated and the average patient takes around 13 medications.
"Sometimes that pill isn’t needed,” he said. “There’s huge room for de-prescribing.”
Ayanjoke added that being an independent pharmacy owner has a few challenges he's trying to overcome. He said in this industry, it's very difficult to get the word out. He wants the people in his community to get a first-hand look at the role he’s playing, but it is hard to get people to listen.
“We’re taking the time to talk to the patient,” Ayanjoke said. “(We’re) not just educating them on their medications, but also going beyond that to look at their medication regimen to see if it’s the best.”
Ayanjoke is licensed by the Ohio Board of Pharmacy and also holds an American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) pain management professional certificate. He’s completed pharmacology research on biomedical data, pharmacotherapy and clinical pharmacy.
Before opening Altev, he worked in family-owned pharmacies, hospice, palliative and long-term care. He earned his bachelor of pharmacy, master of pharmacy and master of business administration from the University of Toledo.
Altev is open 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Friday and Saturdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. It's closed on Sundays.