Q&A: The Superman Pharmacist Shares His Journey from Pharmacy School to Pharmacy Ownership

Mayank Amin, PharmD, RPh, MBA, is the pharmacist, entrepreneur, and marketing aficionado behind the remarkable turnaround of Skippack Pharmacy. But before reopening the once-shuttered pharmacy’s doors to the community, his career path took some unexpected turns.

Pharmacist using counting spatula at pharmacy / sutlafk - stock.adobe.com

In a recent conversation with Drug Topics on Over the Counter, Amin shared his journey—albeit, nontraditional—from pharmacy school to pharmacy ownership, revealing a unique and inspiring path to success.

Drug Topics: Hello, my name is Lauren Massaro, and I'm an associate editor with Drug Topics. Today, I'm joined by Mayank Amin, owner and chief patient advocate of Skippack Pharmacy.

Back in 2019, when a large chain shut down Skippack Pharmacy, Mayank stepped in and reopened its doors to the community. Leading the pharmacy through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and earning the name Superman Pharmacist, Mayank has transformed Skippack into a thriving community hub. On this episode of Over the Counter, Mayank will be talking about his perspectives on community pharmacy, as well as how he got to where he is today. Welcome, and thanks so much for joining me!

Mayank Amin, PharmD, RPh, MBA: Lauren, thanks so much for having me. It's a great pleasure to be here with you today.

Drug Topics: Of course. So, to open our discussion, can you tell us a little bit about your background, as well as your journey reviving Skippack Pharmacy?

Amin: Yeah, so [I’m] a pharmacist by trade, but in general, someone who's very passionate about transforming things that I'm involved with. So ever since I was a child, I always wanted to do something that could make a big impact in the lives of those around me, and that I'd also have a lot of fun doing in the process, because I always believed that when you're doing something—if you're spending a lot of time behind it—if you're not having fun, what's the point of living? And I was fortunate that my path in life kind of allowed me to do a lot of these cool things. And while I can never say that the path that I dreamt about is where I'm at today, I believe that every step leads you to a different opportunity. And I've taken many steps since I've graduated from pharmacy school, and here I am now as a pharmacy owner at Skippack Pharmacy.

My journey kind of began nontraditionally, as I mentioned. I was on my last rotation of pharmacy school [when] I got a phone call from M. Night Shyamalan, a film producer in Philadelphia. His casting director had called me because they were looking for a stand-in double for 1 of the main actors, Dev Patel, who a lot of people know from Slumdog Millionaire. I thought it was a spam call, because normally pharmacy students who are about to be pharmacists don't get these kinds of calls, especially because I never actually applied or signed up or wanted to pursue that path. But once again, it was 1 of those cool things where I thought, if it’s an opportunity that’s actually real, I'll go show up at the auditions and see what it's about. And I did go, and it was kind of cool that [as] I was right about to graduate, this opportunity would begin right after I became a pharmacist. My supervisor at Walgreens where I had a full-time opportunity lined up was actually okay with me continuing to do this nontraditional path for a few months. And I accepted the role. And I was on a movie set for a few months, which I think was an actually mind blowing experience, but it also taught me a lot about patience [and] about working together as a team. So many amazing things that I learned on the movie set—especially working with the director—a lot of those things transformed into the pharmacy world and the pharmacy experience that I'm able to live and produce today.

After that little role in the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, [I] continued the opportunity with Walgreens as a pharmacist. I loved the aspect of being out in the community. So while I was working as a pharmacist behind the door, at the actual counter, and in the pharmacy, I always told my supervisor, “Please let me know of any opportunities that Walgreens has where I can go out into the community and help underserved communities, vaccinate, bring Walgreens new business opportunities—if you have an opportunity, tell me about it, and I'm ready to go.” And at that time, Walgreens was acquiring Duane Reade in New York City. It was a big, huge deal at that time. There were hundreds of stores that they were acquiring. And at that time, my supervisor remembered me, and he said, “Would you like to go to New York City for a couple of weeks and help transition pharmacists and their teams to the Walgreens system?” And I said, “For sure.”

That was also an awesome opportunity because [I] got to learn about culture shift. One company where people have a set mindset, working day-to-day—for many, many years, this chain was open—and now they're switching cultures and systems and a lot of different things to the Walgreens system. I got to interact with people, and of course, you're in Manhattan, so there's no better place in the world than to be in New York City.

I learned a lot while I was there. But that also kind of led me to other thoughts in my mind that, this is kind of cool [that] there's other opportunities in pharmacy where you can be working with big teams, helping them with big transitions. And I also happened to glance at Pfizer while I was in New York City for my couple of weeks staying there with Walgreens. Pfizer’s headquarters are in New York City, and I was staying literally right across the street from the Pfizer headquarters. So, in the back of my mind, that thought came to mind of, what if I started applying for jobs in pharma, just to experience something different?

So, it was about 5 or 6 years into my career at Walgreens where I started applying for jobs on LinkedIn. And for those students that think that you absolutely have to have a fellowship or a residency to get into pharma, I can say you're partially right. But you can make it happen even if you don't have residency or fellowship if you try hard enough. That was me knocking on every single door I could. I use LinkedIn to the max. For those students that don't have a LinkedIn—though any student that comes to my pharmacy for rotations, I'm always telling them, make sure you have a LinkedIn—it's the best way to reach out to people. And also, for me, to find a job opportunity. They have this thing on LinkedIn called LinkedIn easy apply. And I clicked on that button for literally every single opportunity that had the word “pharmacy” and a pharmaceutical company.

And out of the 200 clicks that I clicked on, 1 happened to be Pfizer, and they had an urgent role that they were fulfilling. It was in pharmacovigilance. Drug Safety is the normal name for that word. It would require me to move to New York City within 2 weeks. So, a boy that was born and raised in Lansdale—it's like a farm town—now transitioning in 2 weeks, I would have to move to Manhattan for this role. And I did it; [I] moved into a friend's house, or, apartment, because everything in Manhattan is pretty expensive. We were a block away from Times Square, literally living on his couch for the year. But it was once again a new opportunity. I was at Pfizer, working on adverse event reporting for different products, including vaccines. Never did I think that down the road, I would be supplying or administering hundreds of thousands of these vaccines.

But while I was at Pfizer, I also did my best to network with people. One of the things that I learned from a mentor over there was [that] you're at the headquarters. The CEO is here. There are executives here, there's people coming in and out—key decision makers—and they might end up in the same elevator as you, as you're going up and down the elevator. Don't lose any opportunity that you have to connect with them. Even though you're literally at the bottom of the totem pole, and they're all the way at the top, don't let that stand in the way. I remembered those words, and I actually, 1 day, had emailed the CEO of Pfizer, and I actually got a response. I emailed a few of the executives. I didn't email them to ask them like, “Hey, can I get a promotion?” or “Can I have a better job opportunity?” I simply just wanted to learn about their success, how they managed what they do with their families, their careers, what path they took. And it was amazing that a few of them actually responded back. To be in a company of a couple 100,000 people and to get a response back from the highest folks was cool. And being there at the headquarters, I actually was able to visit some of them at their offices. And I built that [connection] with them at that point where I told them that, “I know I'm not asking for a job in another field at Pfizer, but if there's any opportunities for me to help with any projects at Pfizer that you're working on, I'll happily do it off the clock. Just get me involved with something, because I want to make a difference while I’m here at Pfizer.”

There was a group called Pfizer Innovation. And, once a year—and this was during that time—they would fly in about 50 people from around the world. [Out of] all the different Pfizer employees, 50 would get selected and we'd come together for a conference called Pfizer X. When that conference came, I reached out to some of the executives I had reached out to before. And I was like, “Hey, is there any way you can get me into this conference?” And I got in by literally asking.

So, it was 1 of those things where I was able to have breakfast with the CEO of Pfizer, and we had a scavenger—it was like a bar crawl in the city with the executives. That experience kind of lit up my eyes and made me realize that no matter what you do in our profession, or in your career, there are so many opportunities available, even if you don't plan on it happening to you. And the connections you can make can actually help you down the road, even if you don't—you know you never want to burn a bridge, no matter what, because, who would have ever thought that my Walgreens supervisor, who was a regional supervisor, probably overseeing thousands of employees in our district, would actually come to my 5-year independent pharmacy anniversary party and speak at it? You would think it's competition, you know, Walgreens down the street from me. And here's an independent pharmacy owner—why would his supervisor still come? But this many years later, 2 weeks ago, we had our 5-year anniversary for our independent pharmacy. And my supervisor from Walgreens was there to speak, to say how proud he was that we were helping patients in our community.

It's about networking, building bridges, and doing what you love. So, I was there at Pfizer, but then I also realized that [although] I enjoyed what I did, I didn't want to take on additional leadership opportunities within pharmacovigilance. That wasn't the path that I saw. I wanted to do more outward facing, going out in the community [work], and that wasn't that role. So, I still worked part-time at Walgreens during that time, but being in pharma—at that time they allowed us to go to business school—[I] went back to get my MBA at Villanova while I was working for Pfizer, and Pfizer helped pay for it, which is fantastic. [During] my time [at] Villanova School of Business, obviously things weren't specifically catered towards pharmacists or pharmacy professionals. You're just learning in general about business, marketing, networking, finance, accounting. But the thing I learned from business school is that there's opportunities in literally anything that you're passionate about.

There was a class that I was taking called opportunity recognition. And we had to come up with a startup idea. And we had to present the startup idea to our class. I came up with something completely different from what pharmacy is about: it was about event and wedding planning. So, I was like, “Alright, let me open a wedding and an event planning company for the sake of this project, I will plan someone's wedding, and then I'll bring that back to the class and just present what happened, [and] what the experience was like.”

What I thought was just a class project turned into an actual wedding planning company, and I was able to plan over 100 weddings. Once again, it was a passion-hobby, it didn't feel like work. [I] absolutely loved traveling the world helping couples, including many of the pharmacy students that I went to school with. So, it was it was kind of cool, giving back and being able to help people with the best day of their life.

So, I planned all these weddings [while] working part time at Walgreens. I was working at Pfizer doing these weddings on the weekends [when] I realized like, I actually wanted to pursue this a little bit further and do event and wedding planning full time. There comes a time in your life where you only have 40 hours that you want to work a week. I decided that I would pursue another opportunity on my own, just like a startup, and continue to do that full time.

So, I left my job at Pfizer to become a full-time event and wedding planner while working part time at Walgreens. And I thought that was the direction I was headed in, which would have been fantastic. But I was working at Walgreens 1 day, and I walked out of the store, and I saw a sign on the digital reader board outside which said, “Welcome Skippack Pharmacy patients," and that was a lightbulb to me, because I never had been in an independent pharmacy before in my life. I didn't really even know too much about independent pharmacies. I honestly thought they were for seniors and people that needed customized care. That's why I never stepped foot into 1. But I was like, you know what, this pharmacy must have closed and I'm assuming Walgreens probably bought them out. I asked my supervisor what happened, and he informed me that it wasn't Walgreens that bought them out, but CVS down the street did. So, now their patients—50 years of patients—are floundering all over the place looking for a new home. I took nothing of it, but I was like, let me go drive by that pharmacy and just see what it looks like.

Check out part 2 of our conversation with Amin here.

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