For more than a century, Kornfield Pharmacy has been a fixture in Roxbury, serving generations of community members. Once owned by a Jewish family, the neighborhood pharmacy became Black-owned 33 years ago when it was purchased by the Egesionu family.

In 2011, the family’s stewardship of the business was disrupted when the patriarch Paul Egesionu, who primarily ran the store, was killed while traveling home to Africa. After his untimely death, his wife Esther shifted from being a stay-at-home mother to managing the pharmacy.

Last year, their son, Uchechukwu “Uche” Egesionu, left his engineering career and returned to Roxbury to help his mother continue the family’s legacy.

Upon his return, Uche realized that there were a few key issues to address.

“In today’s day and age, it almost seems set up to benefit those online pharmacies that are trying to make their way into the game, while crushing any brick-and-mortar pharmacy, including the chain pharmacies. Recently, we’ve watched two CVS [and] two Walgreens close down, just because of the way that the reimbursements are being paid back,” he said.

He shared how the reimbursement process works, which includes the pharmacy sending medication to the patient and then billing their insurance for reimbursement. When they bill most of the prescriptions, they come back low, which means that the pharmacy will make $1 on filling the script, maybe $2 on the next one.

This leaves Uche unable to pay his staff or himself. He notes that although certain medications, especially weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, are “having their heyday right now,” as many pharmacies are operating at a loss on them.

“There’s a couple of ways that I consider this loss. First off, these things are not cheap. You’re spending $900 to $1,500 per one vial, and that’s basically your working revenue. You’re taking a big hit in working revenue, [which means] you’re going to wait two weeks to get that back. And you spent, let’s say you spent $1,100, it comes back, and they only paid you $900. So not only did you go without operational cash for about two weeks, you’ve also now lost that money,” he explained.

Uche said that he is essentially selling stuff to put himself out of business, because that is how the current insurance system has been set up, putting pharmacies, especially the mom-and-pop ones like Kornfield, in a real bind.

“Basically, anybody that owns a pharmacy, better be a pharmacist. You’re not going to have enough money to pay anybody else to do that job. You’re barely going to [be able] to pay a staff,” he said. “Most people that I know that are actually making it by — it’s just them or them and one other person to work the register. So, it’s really, really, really been bad.”

The pharmacy has a lot of senior customers who are not very tech savvy and are used to doing business a particular way.

“A lot of people like to be able to speak to their pharmacist directly,” he said. “People want to be able to ask questions. They want to have things explained to them. They want to know why.”

Uche said that having one-on-one conversations with customers and being able to see generations grow up in the community is very important to him.

While this business is struggling, he is doing his best to turn it around and make Kornfield Pharmacy profitable and successful so it can remain in the community.

He talked about the importance of community support, noting that Roxbury is officially in a pharmacy vacuum, especially Nubian Square.

“We’re the only pharmacy in Nubian Square right now. Everyone else has failed. The only other place [community members] can get medication is from hospitals, or they [have] to find a way to get a car, pay a taxi, pay Uber trips and cabs to go across town to get their medication,” he said.

Because Kornfield Pharmacy does deliver, this helps community members access their medications, especially those who cannot walk or do not have access to a car; the next closest location to obtain medications is Brigham Circle.

One of the longtime community members and customers of Kornfield Pharmacy is Stephanie Thomas.

“It’s like a second home. They’re friendly. They understand, I mean it,” she said, describing the stark contrast with corporate drugstores.

She has made it a personal mission to get the word out about Kornfield Pharmacy’s struggle to survive.

“It’s very important to have Kornfield’s in the community, because a lot of the seniors can’t get around like they normally do. But Kornfield’s will get in their cars and they will deliver the medication to a lot of the seniors,” she said.

Uche is truly thankful for Thomas and many others in the community who he says have been instrumental in helping to reset and beautify the store. Having community members rally to help keep Kornfield Pharmacy afloat gives him hope that he will turn things around.

“It definitely gives me hope.

I haven’t seen a paycheck in two years. It makes me think that I might be able to see one soon. Yeah, it gives me hope, not for myself, but more so for the neighborhood. I would like to see my life move forward, but there are so many other people that will be paying if this business was to fail. I would also like to thank some people from the city of Boston who have been [a] very, very big help [in] helping us to try and acquire a loan. …It’s very endearing,” he said.

Uche has ideas on how to sustain and grow Kornfield Pharmacy in the future.

“I see it modernizing, expanding its reach. Not just here, [but] maybe you have a secondary location, more vehicles, so we could do more deliveries, and hopefully more clientele, so we can meet more people,” he said.

The engineer also dreams of upscaling with technology.

“I would like my generation to be able to use things in a way that’s easy for us as well, without forgetting about the ways of the past and still keeping those alive for the people that are really, really used to that and prefer it that way,” he said.

He also shared how community members can support them at this time, which includes donating to their online GoFundMe, recommending their services to others and purchasing merchandise from the pharmacy.

Uche said that what keeps him motivated to continue to turn Kornfield Pharmacy around is his family.

“I was raised as the eldest son of a Nigerian household, second child, but eldest son. So, I’ve always had responsibilities pushed on to me. I saw all the hardship my father went through to build this business. I saw how many nights he was up. I’ve seen him [watch] his business burn down and build it back up. I’ve seen him just toil and toil, and then, he’d never even got to realize the fruits of his labor because he was killed. I would love his legacy to live on through me, through his store, through the actions and the people that loved him.

“I may not be a pharmacist, but I am my father’s son, and I love my father to death. That was my dawg. I love him to death. I would hate to see something else of his go to waste,” he said.