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Emeka Onwudiwe’s career plans involve pharmacy...and a record label. They’re big challenges but as the British Pharmaceutical Students' Association president tells Neil Trainis, he wouldn’t have it any other way…

Emeka Onwudiwe has come a long way but it feels like his journey has just begun. 

The loquacious 22-year-old president of the British Pharmaceutical Students' Association, who grew up in Woolwich and spent much of his childhood “moving from council flat to council flat”, leads a fascinating double life.

He has been studying for his pharmacy degree at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and wants to work in community pharmacy one day. He also has ambitions to own a pharmacy.

There’s nothing extraordinary about that. What’s interesting is Emeka juggles his studies with co-running a record label. It’s not long before I realise I’m talking to the BPSA president and managing director of OT Records.

Not your average student

Its swanky-looking website describes itself as “the home of UK hip-hop, showcasing the best talent in the UK rap scene, from emerging artists to established names”.

Emeka co-founded OT Records, where he is also head of finance, with two friends he met on social media. Most pharmacy students would be content to immerse themselves in their studies and have no distractions. Emeka is different. He’s not your average student.

There’s a fearlessness about him. He’s not afraid of being overwhelmed but he is eager to grab the moment, whenever that moment arrives. And although he is young, he is no wannabe entrepreneur. He seems to be some way down that road already.

“I’ve always had a business mind which is my passion. I kind of use that as an outlet to pharmacy. I manage both of them now,” he says. It feels like he’s embarking on a pharmacy-music industry dual adventure, if ‘adventure’ isn’t overplaying the pharmacy part of it given pharmacies’ struggles.

The beginning of OT Records has a ‘grab-the-moment’ feel to it. “The idea started pre-Covid,” Emeka says. “Funnily enough actually, I met the two friends on social media, which was quite funny. I’d never met them in real life.

We even have international artists

“We were just talking and interacting but we realised slowly that we all had a passion for music. After meeting on social media, we all got on quite well and we would FaceTime each other quite often. And we realised we all have characteristics that a record label has.

“I was really good at finances and really good at interacting and speaking to people. One of us was really good at editing and social media handling and videography, that is his sector.

“The other one is really good at artists’ management and is really in-depth in the music world. So, we were like ‘you know what? Why don’t we start a record label?’ But it was only a throw-it-out-there idea that was never really encapsulated, so we kind of just talked about it more and more.”

OT Records, which is based in Manchester, stands for Overseas Talent. Emeka, who is not modestly aspirational, says the label is “the home of all music”.

“Rap, grime, we do contemporary, we do acoustic music, we do singers, we do different types of music. We even have international artists as well.

“We had an artist who was Norwegian. Back in the day, we had an artist from France. We don’t segregate ourselves to one (genre). If you do that, you’re limiting yourself to talent that’s across all music. I never want to be like that.”

I’m intrigued to find out which artists his label represents. “We represent a rap artist who’s based in South-East London called JR. We cleared our roster quite recently.

“We had quite a lot of artists but we realised we don’t just want to be a record label, we want to be a brand, so we do other things on top of that. We have a freestyle platform called After Hours where we allow emerging and upcoming artists to showcase their talent.

Studying pharmacy, listening to artists perform

“We give them the opportunity and platform to grow their music. We also use it as a marketing tool to allow artists who have cemented themselves in the music industry. That’s how we balance the mix. We’ve been doing that for two years now.”

It’s not surprising to hear Emeka say he wants OT Records to be more than a “management company”. His vision is a brand that “diversifies into different sectors”.

“We don’t just want it to be ‘we manage our artists and once the artist gets to a certain level, they move on somewhere else.’”

A typical week will see Emeka study pharmacy then travel from Norwich where he lives to a studio he and his friends have hired out in Manchester at the weekend to hear artists perform.

“We hire a studio on a Saturday and one on a Sunday and we split it. One day will be for emerging artists, one day will be for the concrete artists,” he says, insisting OT Records has never interfered with his pharmacy studies.

“At the beginning, I spent a lot of time (on OT Records) because we were just starting. But as we increased, the team got stronger. The communication with the people who I own the company with has always been transparent.

“They’ve always understood I do pharmacy and they knew pharmacy is a really hard degree. These guys can pick up the slack when it comes to me focusing on my exams. We have that open communication which is very important in a company.”

You can see why Emeka is not daunted by the prospect of owning and running a pharmacy. He already seems to have some useful basic tools, such as the ability to manage finances, communicate clearly with other team members and, of course, multi-task.

Having to make agonising, potentially life-impacting decisions which are routinely forced on pharmacy owners, such as reducing a service or opening hours or telling a desperate patient a medicine is out of stock, are not things textbooks can teach.

Those life experiences await him but his future as a pharmacy owner appears to be taking shape. The other quality he has is the ability to think a bit left field. Great pharmacists are innovative.

“It’s not a burden to have a music company on top of pharmacy,” Emeka insists. “From Monday to Friday, I’m really focusing on pharmacy. I’m also doing a bit of music and at the weekend, I have music as an outlet to take a break from pharmacy and focus on something I’m really passionate about.”

That last observation throws me slightly given his enthusiasm for pharmacy and the music industry. He chuckles at the idea he’ll be able to give up pharmacy if his record label takes off dramatically.

“That could be, it could be. With pharmacy, I’ve always wanted to have it there like a foundation. There are certain things I want to do with pharmacy that music can’t provide. And there are things I want to do with music that pharmacy can’t provide.

“Having that balance is a perfect mix. In life, there’s no point limiting yourself, having one or the other. You can do both. There is a time to do both.

“Once I get to the point where ‘I’m done with pharmacy but I’m a qualified pharmacist’, I’ll look back and think it was all worth it. With pharmacy, once you’re qualified, the world’s your oyster. You can do what you want after that.”

Role model for students at the BPSA

Emeka is enjoying his year as BPSA president. He sees himself as a role model for other students in much the same way his mother Judith, who was a parking ticket inspector and is now a nurse, has been for him.

She largely raised him on her own as his father travelled back and forth from the UK to Nigeria where he has business interests. “My mum was mainly there. My dad was there as well but he was mainly in Nigeria. He was a business owner back there and was managing director at Guinness.

“He would come to the UK, stay for six months, then he would go back to Nigeria and sort out the business over there. I spent a lot of time with my mum. I have two biological sisters and two adopted sisters in Nigeria. My mum was really prevalent throughout my whole childhood.”

Emeka describes his childhood as “really good” even though the family had to regularly uproot and he missed his father for long periods.

“At the beginning, it was a bit of a struggle because we were always moving houses,” Emeka says. “While my mum was having me, she was studying nursing. I took a lot of inspiration from my mum in terms of not giving up.

“If you have a set goal, no matter what obstacle comes in your way, if you have that focus and tunnel vision, then you can always get to it. My childhood was really blessed.

“I had a lot of opportunities. I went to school straight away. My mum gave us the best in terms of giving us all the resources to function in education. She really highlighted the importance of having an education.

“Regardless of what I was saying when I was younger, ‘I want to be a footballer, I want to be a basketball player,’ my mum was like ‘you can be but education has to be first as well’.”

Emeka did not give up when his GCSEs “didn’t go the way” he wanted, leaving him fearing it was “not possible to get into pharmacy in the first place”. But he persevered, completing a BTEC Level 3 in health and social care.

“I didn’t know you could go through the BTEC way. But I realised if I got a higher degree in this BTEC, there’s a chance certain universities will take me on the foundation year.”

They were struggling with their education system

Pharmacy captured his imagination during a three-day summer school visit at UEA. Emeka is acutely aware he might not have had the opportunities he’s had if he had grown up in Nigeria. And so, another impressive character trait he possesses is a sense of perspective.

“When you’re Nigerian and you come to a country like the UK, you realise the education system is really good. I knew how privileged I was to be in the UK compared to a lot of family I had back in Nigeria.

“I knew how they were struggling through their education system, so I definitely didn’t take it for granted.”

What hits me more than anything else is his emotional intelligence. He can read people, again, just like great pharmacists can.

Emeka might have been a psychologist because he had an interest in “the ideas and things that work in a human brain”. A career in psychology was not for him but he realised holding a consultation with a patient has “a psychology aspect to it”.

“I thought ‘maybe I can embed psychology into another career path to give it a bit more sense,’” he says. His ability to read emotions has allowed him to support students during his presidency of the BPSA.

“Whenever someone was down or maybe going through something, I would always have ways of reaching people but I wouldn’t use the same method for the same person.

“I realised that speaking to people on different levels is interesting because you can get to people in different ways and I really wanted to find out why that happens.”

Recalling his BPSA election victory last year, which he describes as a “blackout moment”, Emeka says he ran simply because he “really likes helping and interacting with people”.

In fact, the BPSA was a natural fit for him. After joining it in 2022 as its eastern area coordinator, he became treasurer having handled the finances for OT Records.

But his passion is in people not numbers. Pharmacy students come to him with all kinds of concerns. The “most worrying”, he says, is prescribing training. Emeka will be in the first cohort of newly qualified pharmacists who will automatically become prescribers in 2026.

Lack of transparency with prescribing

“There’s a lack of transparency at the moment from the hierarchies that are currently trying to sort out the situation,” he insists.

“When you’re sorting out a situation, the best way you can help the people who are going to be impacted by those decisions is to have that transparency.

“But at the moment, unless you’re in the BPSA, you don’t know much about what’s going on with the process of sorting out the prescribing training. At the moment, there’s a lack of designated prescribing practitioners (DPPs) who are going to train us to become IPs or to be qualified in 2026.

“A lot of students are seeing there’s a lack of DPPs but they’re not actually understanding why there’s a lack of DPPs and what the next actions are to rectify that.”

One privilege the BPSA presidency offers is access to high level meetings. Emeka sits on the UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board which has discussed, among many other things, a lack of DPPs.

“But all the other 10,000-plus members of the BPSA have no clue about what’s going on. All they’re seeing are headlines saying ‘there’s a lack of DPPs,’” he says. “There should be more transparency in the steps that are going to be taken.

“A lot of students come up to me and say ‘Emeka, what things have you heard in this meeting? Is our prescribing training going to be ok? Are we going to have enough DPPs to train us to become IPs?’ These questions should be in the open.”

He does not blame any organisation for that lack of transparency. Rather, he sympathises with them. “Blame is probably not the best word. I would say experience. A lot of people haven’t been in this situation before.

“The organisations dealing with the situation, it’s not something that has occurred before. This is the first year that prescribing has been implemented within a trainee year. It’s an unknown for everyone.”

Our conversation, inevitably, turns to equality and diversity. I say ‘inevitably’ because as a black student, I’m curious to know if Emeka has ever experienced racism and discrimination.

BPSA is ‘biggest landmark’ for equal opportunity

“In terms of my experience in my undergraduate year at university, for equality and diversity, no issue whatsoever. Regardless of the opportunities I’ve had, the same opportunities have been given to my peers.”

He argues the BPSA “is the biggest landmark” for equal opportunity progression in pharmacy. “Back in the day, diversity in the BPSA was not that prevalent. You might have had one, two black people max on the executive team.

“But when I went into the BPSA in 2022, I was given the same opportunity as everyone else. There was a diverse range of races in that room from all different parts of the country and the world.

“If you had the belief and confidence that you could be on that team, you were given the same 50-50 opportunity as every single candidate who ran for that role.

“I realised the BPSA really incorporates, no matter where you come from, different socio-economic, different cultural backgrounds.”

Emeka points to the election in 2023 of Nonyelum Anigbo as the BPSA’s first black president and his election a year later as its first black male president as “landmark moments”.

He suggests that when it comes to black and ethnic minority students being treated equally with white students within education and training, things “have definitely improved”.

“It’s definitely taken seriously in pharmacy education and within the healthcare industry as a whole. Back in the day, let’s say secondary school, I saw a lot of case studies, a lot of questionnaires, things used in our learning curriculum, and there would be just white actors, there would just be white patients.

“But when I started university, there was more variation. There were black actors, Asian actors, white actors. Equality and diversity has taken a big improvement.”

Unfair to say GPhC does nothing about attainment gap

And yet as recently as May 2024, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association raised concerns about a “long-standing ethnicity attainment gap” in response to the General Pharmaceutical Council’s consultation on the quality assurance of pharmacy education and training.

The PDA said that gap was “huge” for black-African students and had been “consistently below” other groups for over 10 years. The PDA claimed it wasn’t clear what the GPhC was doing to stamp out “potential bias” in the registration assessment or how it was supporting black-African students. Emeka is philosophical about the issue.

“Everyone has a valid point when it comes to the attainment gap. I feel like it’s up to interpretation. If you look at 2013, there was a big, big gap in attainment but it has gone down a bit. But it’s up and down, it fluctuates.

“Some years, I thought it was improving, then it went quite high again, then it went quite down again.”  He says it’s “very unfair to say the GPhC is doing nothing about it”.

“I believe they want to sort it out. But it’s not an easy task. When you look at the situation now, it should be ‘what can I do year after year to bring the percent down, even if it’s just 0.5, one per cent, every single year?’

“There should be short-term goals because the long-term goal is to eradicate it. I’ve spoken to representatives at the GPhC a lot about the attainment gap and I know there are steps in place to actively address it within pharmacy education and training.”

Emeka insists the GPhC cannot take on the ethnicity attainment gap issue on its own. “It knows it has to collaborate with organisations like the BPSA which is the hub for all pharmacy undergraduate students across the UK.

LGBTQ individuals are treated fairly

“The GPhC needs to collaborate to find out why are black African trainees having a low percentage of pass rates? What is the issue? What strategies, what collective effort, can we come together to create a more equitable educational environment for all pharmacy students and trainees?”

Emeka also insists no LGBTQ student has ever complained to him that they have suffered discrimination at the hands of a “healthcare professional or teaching practitioner”.

“In terms of my experience of LGBTQ individuals, no issue whatsoever. I believe they are treated fairly. We do a lot of work surrounding LGBTQ, especially the BPSA. We have a campaign in June. We also have a Pride month walk in London and Edinburgh in June with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.”

As determined and measured as Emeka is, I can’t help but feel a rude awakening awaits him. You never really know what it’s like to run a pharmacy, how the pressures hit you, until you actually run one.

But with another chuckle, Emeka takes it in his stride. “You know what, these challenges are going to shape my progression at the end of the day.

“If you go into any business, regardless of what it is, whether it’s pharmacy or music, you have to expect these obstacles.”