In Canarsie, Brooklyn, Stella’s Pharmacy was the kind of place where the pharmacist knew your name and your family. Christian Stella’s grandfather built it into a neighbourhood staple. By the time Christian was born, the pharmacy was so woven into family life that, as a Digital Journal profile put it, his first diaper was changed there.

Decades later, the family’s fourth-generation pharmacist runs a very different kind of pharmacy, from Bellmore, on Long Island’s South Shore.

A family business that grew

Christian’s father expanded the family’s work into a long-term care pharmacy business alongside four retail pharmacies, according to the August 2026 profile. Christian grew up watching how a pharmacy business runs when it is built on relationships with patients.

He earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from St. John’s University in Queens in 2016, becoming the fourth generation of his family to hold the title.

The independent pharmacy under pressure

The world his grandfather knew has changed. The National Community Pharmacists Association counted 18,960 independent community pharmacies in the United States as of July 2025, down from 18,984 a year earlier. In its 2025 Digest, NCPA reported a ten-year high in the cost of goods and a ten-year low in gross profits, driven by low or below-cost reimbursement from third-party payers.

Independent pharmacies still make up nearly 36 percent of US retail pharmacies, NCPA says, and 45 percent offer compounding services.

A Long Island pharmacy for the telehealth era

Stella and his co-founders took a different route. Precision Medicine, formerly Precision Compounding Pharmacy, operates from 2657 Merrick Road in Bellmore. Rather than serving walk-in customers, it fills prescriptions for telehealth companies and ships them directly to patients.

The company describes itself as a 503A pharmacy offering commercial, sterile and non-sterile medications. Its software connects to telehealth partners’ systems, and it can package medications under a partner’s brand. It says it has expanded to fulfillment centres in Florida and California alongside New York.

Its leadership team includes chief operating officer Connor Longo, a PharmD, and Lisa Capriola, vice president of compliance, according to the company’s website.

What carried over

The setting is different, but the company frames its work in terms the Canarsie counter would recognise. “At Precision Medicine, we believe patients deserve better,” its website says. “Partners deserve more. And the pharmacy should never be the bottleneck.”

Stella told Digital Journal he wants Precision Medicine to become the defining name in direct-to-consumer telehealth fulfillment.

A local story with national reach

The Stella family’s story shows one way the family pharmacy tradition is adapting: the relationships and clinical standards stay, while the counter moves online and the delivery van replaces the front door.