Compounded GLP-1s Are Going Away. Here’s What To Do If You Take Them

Compounding pharmacies have been allowed to make generic versions of Ozempic, Mounjaro, and similar drugs — until now.

 Health Access to Compounded GLP-1s Is Drying Up. Here’s What to Know About the Copycat Weight-Loss Drugs

Recent FDA changes have thrown their availability into legal limbo.

Is Compounded Semaglutide Safe to Use?

Compounded medications can offer a cheaper way to obtain scarce drugs. But the FDA has raised concerns about salt-compounded forms of semaglutide, which may not be safe or effective.

Semaglutide: beware of buying the weight-loss drug online

Even if it is legal to produce compounded versions of semaglutide, these versions are still prescription drugs. This means that online buyers without prescriptions face two somewhat alarming possibilities: either they’re not getting semaglutide legally, or they’re not getting semaglutide at all.

What You Need to Know About Compounded Versions of Popular Weight Loss Drugs

But as with many situations in which supply far exceeds demand, questionable versions of these drugs are making their way into desperate patients’ hands, and doctors are concerned about what exactly these versions contain. Some online sellers are exploiting the opportunity to cash in, selling knockoffs of Wegovy, whose active ingredient is semaglutide, that may not even contain semaglutide.

Buyer beware: Off-brand Ozempic, Zepbound and other weight loss products carry undisclosed risks for consumers

For people who cannot afford a compounding pharmacy product, or cannot get a valid prescription for semaglutide or tirzepatide, opportunistic companies are stepping in to fill the void. These include “peptide companies,” manufacturers that create non-FDA approved knockoff versions of the drugs.

Compounded (And Counterfeit) Semaglutide

So it's a confusing landscape out there. My guess is that a significant amount of the stuff coming from the compounding pharmacies is not quite Ozempic, since there's not enough of that to go around at the moment, and in some cases it may be even worse than that. There is truly no way for the patients involved to know what they're getting in such cases, which is where the libertarian "let 'em try it" position starts to break down.

Compounded semaglutide is an ill-defined public health crisis

As a cardiologist, I’m seeing vulnerable patients seeking Wegovy and other GLP-1s turn to questionable yet convenient solutions online.

Compounded Semaglutide: Is it worth the risk?

This drug was first approved in 2017 by the brand name Ozempic® for the treatment of diabetes. Due to its effects on weight loss, semaglutide was also approved in 2021 for weight management under the name Wegovy®. The sheer popularity of this drug has resulted in supply shortages, prompting some people to seek out compounded versions of the drug instead.

FDA Warns People Not to Use Off-Brand Versions of Ozempic and Wegovy

Agency officials said this week that they have received reports of problems after patients used versions of semaglutide, the active ingredient in the brand-name medications, which have been compounded, or mixed in pharmacies. Officials didn’t say what the problems were.

Is Semaglutide Safe? What You Need to Know

As with most drugs, the potential benefits of semaglutide come with certain risks.

More People Are Overdosing on Ozempic Alternatives

Some patients say it’s easy to get the do-it-yourself doses of compounded semaglutide wrong.

Obesity specialists warn against 'bootleg' weight-loss drug

Semaglutide, a weight-loss drug developed by Novo Nordisk, is currently in short supply due to high demand, leading some people to seek out "generic" or compounded versions of the drug instead... But obesity specialists warn against using compounded semaglutide since its quality and safety cannot be guaranteed.

What to know about cheaper, imitation weight-loss drugs

Off-brand versions of GLP-1 weight loss drugs made by compounding pharmacies are often more accessible, but not without risks.