Mylo Wells always wanted to open his own community pharmacy in his hometown.  

When Mylo Wells graduated in May 2018 from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy, he had a five-year goal: to open his own pharmacy near where he grew up.

He accomplished it in six months.

Wells Hometown Drug opened in December 2018 in Bloomfield, the southeast Iowa town in which he went to high school and just miles from his family’s dairy farm in Milton, Iowa.

“We’re providing a really high level of pharmacy care, and I feel good about doing that because I grew up around here, and I know that it’s affecting people who helped me when I was growing up,” Wells says. “That means a lot to me.”

Mylo Wells says he and his wife, who is a physical therapist in Bloomfield, always planned to return to their hometown, where they are now raising their children, Fredrick, 2, and Isaiah, 3 months.

Wells says the education and experience he received at Iowa prepared him to hit the ground running.

“I graduated with a lot of clinical skills that some other colleges of pharmacy don’t provide. That gave me a ton of knowledge and confidence going forward,” Wells says. “I also appreciated that we often talked about current events in pharmacy school because that really helped me when I was coming up with a business plan to know what the landscape was. I had the background to know what and where to research.”

Wells was introduced to the pharmacy field early in life. His mom, Jana Zeitler, is a pharmacist, and he worked with her in high school.

“I really enjoyed getting to know and developing relationships with our patients,” Wells says. “I liked the idea that I could help take care of them. My favorite part of the job is still forming individual relationships with all of our patients. I try to greet everyone that walks through our doors.”

After completing all the necessary pre-pharmacy coursework at Iowa State University, Wells says he chose the University of Iowa’s College of Pharmacy because of its reputation and because he felt it would be the best school to prepare him for owning his own pharmacy.

Wells went to work after graduation at a pharmacy in Keosauqua, Iowa, but soon learned that a chain pharmacy was closing in nearby Bloomfield. He and his wife, Jackie, who is also from Bloomfield and graduated from the University of Iowa Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science in 2016, decided to seize the opportunity.

“Every night after work, I worked on this,” Wells says. “It was a wild few months. We started with zero patient files, but now we’ve got about 6,000 patients.”

Written by: Emily Nelson, Office of Strategic Communication