What compounding means
Compounding means mixing or making a drug to order for a patient. a
FDA is short for the Food and Drug Administration, a federal agency.
As of September 2026, these drugs were not FDA-approved, even if made by a licensed pharmacy. a
The FDA does not check that they are safe, work well or meet quality standards before they reach patients. a
What an approved copy means
Generic is the name for a copy of a brand drug that has its own FDA approval. b
The United States had no available FDA-approved generic version of semaglutide as of September 2026. e
Calling a compounded drug a generic was misleading, the FDA said. b
Why the shortage ending matters
A drug's place on the FDA's national shortage list can allow pharmacies to make copies that they otherwise could not regularly make. c
The FDA declared the national shortage of semaglutide injections resolved on February 21, 2025. c
As of September 2026, these shots were still off the national shortage list. c
That meant the national-shortage exception no longer allowed regular copies of these shots. c
When one local pharmacy has no stock, that alone does not count as a national shortage. c
An individual need is a separate question
As of September 2026, ordinary pharmacies faced limits on regularly making copies of drugs already on the market. f
A pharmacy-made version could fall outside that copying limit if the person writing the prescription recorded why a change from the ready-made drug made an important difference for that named patient. c
A lower bill, by itself, was not an acceptable reason for that exception. f
Ask: what is different from the ready-made drug, and why does that difference matter for my care?
Ask about the ingredient itself
If the ingredient name says 'semaglutide sodium' or 'semaglutide acetate', the extra word matters: this is a different ingredient from the semaglutide in approved drugs. d
These versions are called salt forms, meaning versions with different chemistry from the approved ingredient. d
As of September 2026, the FDA did not know whether these versions acted the same way as the ingredient in approved drugs. d
It said it knew of no lawful basis to make compounded drugs with them. d