A growing number of people have unique health needs that off-the-shelf prescription medicines cannot meet. For them, customized, compounded medications prescribed or ordered by licensed physicians and mixed safely by trained, licensed compounding pharmacists are one of the few ways to achieving better health. Compounding is in even greater demand for treating animals because of the relatively narrow selection of medicines that are manufactured by pharmaceutical companies.

Pharmacists are the only health care professionals that have studied chemical compatibilities and can prepare alternate dosage forms. In fact, each state requires that pharmacy schools must as part of their core curriculum, instruct students on the compounding of pharmaceutical ingredients.

Compounding pharmacies are licensed and regulated in all 50 states and the District of Columbia by their respective State Board of Pharmacy.

Because every patient is different and has different needs, customized, compounded medications are a vital part of quality medical care.

• When needed medications are discontinued by or generally unavailable from pharmaceutical manufacturing companies, often because the medications are no longer profitable to manufacture;
• When the patient is allergic to certain preservatives, dyes or binders in available off-the shelf medications;
• When treatment requires tailored dosage strengths for patients with unique needs (for example, an infant);
• When a pharmacist can combine several medications the patient is taking to increase compliance;
• When the patient cannot ingest the medication in its commercially available form and a pharmacist can prepare the medication in cream, liquid or other form that the patient can easily take; and
• When medications require flavor additives to make them more palatable for some patients, most often children, but obviously, not always.