What “compounded” tells you.

Not every medicine may be made to order

A pharmacy still has to check whether the law allows each ingredient it uses. A pharmacy licence and your prescription alone do not give permission to use any ingredient.

• Federal limits still applied on September 26, 2026 to the raw ingredients used by a regular compounding pharmacy.
• Federal law restricts pharmacies from repeatedly making, or making large amounts of, drugs that count as copies of available approved medicines.
• For weight medicines, FDA generally counts a made-to-order drug as a copy when it has the same treatment ingredient, the same or similar strength, and is taken the same way as the available product.
• Your prescriber can decide that changing the medicine would make an important difference for you as an individual. That patient-specific change can qualify for an exception to the copy rule; a lower price alone cannot.

The weight-medicine shortage changed

A medicine on FDA’s national shortage list has different rules for making copies. An empty shelf at your local pharmacy does not add a medicine to FDA’s national shortage list.

• FDA’s shortage list did not include semaglutide injections (Ozempic or Wegovy) or tirzepatide (Mounjaro or Zepbound) as of September 26, 2026.
• A compounded product may still count as a copy under FDA’s policy after a vitamin is added.
• FDA’s stated position is that compounding cagrilintide and retatrutide is barred by federal law; this was checked September 26, 2026.