Term / Compounding
With compounding, a medicine is made to order. It is not supplied as the drug maker’s finished product.
As of September 26, 2026, medicines made to order are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This US agency checks medicines.
Before these medicines are sold, the FDA does not assess how safe they are, their quality or how well they work.
When approved medicines cannot meet a patient’s needs, compounding can provide a medicine for that person.
As of September 26, 2026, the FDA’s last tirzepatide shortage decision was its December 19, 2024 finding that the national shortage had ended.
While tirzepatide was on the national shortage list, pharmacies could make copies under the shortage rules; that reason for making copies ended in 2025.
The deadlines were initially February 18, 2025, for ordinary compounding pharmacies and March 19, 2025, for larger facilities that make medicines for other care services. The FDA extended its pause on enforcing shortage rules for ordinary pharmacies through the court’s March 5, 2025 decision.
An empty shelf at one local pharmacy does not add a medicine to the FDA’s national shortage list.
As of September 26, 2026, US law restricts pharmacies from regularly making copies of medicines already sold, or making those copies in large amounts.
The health professional writing a prescription is called a prescriber.
This rule allows an ordinary compounding pharmacy an exception when it changes a medicine for a single patient identified by name.
The prescription writer must judge the change to be an important difference for this patient when compared with the medicine already on sale.
A lower price by itself is not the kind of difference this rule requires.
An approved medicine that is a version of a brand-name product is called a generic.
As of September 26, 2026, the FDA has approved no generic version of tirzepatide.
Ask the service to use the product’s actual name. Keep that name when checking the bill.