Compounding Pharmacies Explained: Safety, GLP-1s, Peptides & Personalized Medicine

Host David J. Bauder, PA-C, founder of Weight Loss & Vitality, is joined by Scott Welsh from Preston’s Pharmacy in Arlington, Virginia, for an in-depth discussion about the world of pharmaceutical compounding and the growing role compounding pharmacies play in modern healthcare.

Compounding pharmacies have existed since the earliest days of pharmacy, but the rapid growth of GLP-1 medications, bioidentical hormone therapy, peptides, and personalized medicine has brought pharmaceutical compounding into the national spotlight.

In this episode, David and Scott explain what compounding pharmacies actually do, why commercially manufactured medications do not always meet the needs of every patient, and how pharmacists can work alongside healthcare providers to create individualized medications, dosages, and delivery methods.

The conversation explores the regulations governing compounding pharmacies, including state boards of pharmacy, USP standards, FDA oversight, and the important differences between 503A compounding pharmacies and 503B outsourcing facilities. Scott also explains why compounded medications are not FDA-approved in the same way as commercially manufactured drugs and why that distinction does not mean legitimate compounding pharmacies operate without regulatory oversight. 

David and Scott also discuss how shortages of GLP-1 medications brought compounding pharmacies into mainstream healthcare, the legal limitations surrounding investigational medications such as retatrutide, and the growing patient safety concerns surrounding peptides and other products sold online as “research use only.”

Listeners also get a behind-the-scenes look at how reputable compounding pharmacies source pharmaceutical ingredients and evaluate quality. Topics include FDA-registered manufacturers, wholesalers and repackagers, Certificates of Analysis, potency and purity testing, endotoxin concerns, third-party verification, and why transparency and quality control matter when selecting a pharmacy. 

The conversation concludes with the role of compounding pharmacies in bioidentical hormone therapy and personalized medicine, along with practical advice patients can use when evaluating a pharmacy and asking questions about where their medications come from.

In This Episode

• The history and purpose of compounding pharmacies
 • Personalized medicine and customized prescriptions
 • Regulation and oversight of pharmaceutical compounding
 • 503A pharmacies vs. 503B outsourcing facilities
 • Compounded medications and FDA approval
 • GLP-1 medication shortages and pharmaceutical compounding
 • Semaglutide, tirzepatide, and the future of GLP-1 medications
 • Why investigational drugs like retatrutide should not currently be compounded
 • The difference between licensed pharmacies and online research chemical sellers
 • Raw ingredient sourcing and FDA-registered manufacturers
 • Certificates of Analysis and third-party verification
 • Potency, purity, endotoxins, and quality control
 • Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy
 • Testosterone therapy for women
 • How patients can evaluate a compounding pharmacy
 • The growing role of personalized and preventive medicine 

Key Takeaway

Compounding pharmacies can fill important gaps in healthcare by creating personalized medications for patients whose needs are not adequately met by commercially available products. However, responsible compounding depends on quality ingredients, regulatory compliance, appropriate testing, transparency, and collaboration between the patient, healthcare provider, and pharmacist.

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⚠️ Disclaimer
This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Listening to this episode does not establish a provider-patient relationship. Always consult your qualified healthcare professional regarding medical concerns, diagnosis, or treatment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Vitality.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Vitality Unfiltered.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Unfiltered.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

With David Bowder.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome back to another episode of Vitality Unfiltered. I'm David Bowder, your host today. With me is Scott Welch from Preston's Pharmacy in Arlington, Virginia. Today's topic we will be discussing compounding pharmacies. Most people have filled prescriptions at a pharmacy, but far fewer people understand what a compounding pharmacy actually does. Over the past few years, compound medications have become a major part of healthcare conversations involving weight loss drug. That's the primary focus about how compounding pharmacies really, really have gained popularity over the last several years. But they also are involved with hormone therapy, medication shortages, personalized medicine. And at the same time, there's a lot of confusion and misinformation about compounding pharmacies. So to help clear the air about that today is Scott with us. Scott, thanks for the coming on the show. David, excited to be here, excited to talk about compounding. So if we if we start from the kind of start from the beginning, uh compounding pharmacies have been around a long time. Yeah. And I know it predates anyone living today. Okay. This goes back in history. So what is kind of the history with compounding pharmacies?

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Yeah, you kind of hit the nail on the head. So if you think about what a compounding pharmacy does, it's in the essence of what pharmacy was way back when it started. You know, before we had commercialized medicine, people would come in to their pharmacists, they would mix something up and send them on their way to help with an ailment. Today's compounding pharmacy, what we do is we make personalized medicine to treat patients when a commercial medication doesn't uh fit that patient. So that is that is what we do basically in the compounding pharmacy.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

So when a patient needs a medication that isn't readily available in this in the market, um, they're going to reach out. You know, that's when they should start thinking about, okay, I need to go um see what my options are. Because I get most clinicians do not readily think about utilizing compounding pharmacies.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Yeah, so it's a unique niche within pharmacy. Um it's not always taught in schools, right? So a lot of physicians don't know about compounding. And that's one of the things that we do is we try to get the word out there. And it's it's really fun to be a compounder because we try to help fix some of your hardest patients' problems where they don't fit into a traditional bucket where there's a commercially available med. And some of our best conversations with providers is hey, I have a patient with X problem. Can you help? And be like, well, let me think about that. And then we go go to the drawing board and say, how can we fix whatever's going on with them, whether it's a topical, it's an oral, it's an injectable. But yeah, if patients have tried traditional therapy and something is not working, I think it's a great time to start thinking of personalized medicine. Um, how can we tailor it to that patient? What could be going on with that patient? What could the commercial have that isn't serving that patient correctly?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Aaron Powell What um when you think about the history of it, right? Going back to the history for a second, when did when did like what how how far back are the roots of compounding pharmacy?

SPEAKER_03 2:55

I mean, I would I would take compounding pharmacy all the way back to the origins of pharmacy. When you were uh if you look at those old like kind of photos of a pharmacist coming coming in and there would be a prescription and they would go to their back counter and they'd be mixing some kind of a type of tonic, right? Up and uh that is compounding. When you take ingredients and you're combining them pursuant to a prescription, you are compounding medications specifically for that patient.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Aaron Powell A lot of patients, a lot of people don't realize that compounding pharmacies predates standard pharmaceutical companies by a long ways. Yeah. And the pharmaceutical companies came after the fact when more of the industrialization and the mass production of this stuff has started to occur.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

Aaron Powell Correct. Yeah. When you when you think about that, like the standardization of medicine, not necessarily a bad thing, but there was a need for it because when you think about compounding, everyone compounds a little bit differently. And there are some conditions where there should be some standardization, there should be some oversight, there should be some commercialization. But to this date, compounding is still a needed uh practice for patients because it it fills those gaps that commercial medications don't treat. Let's talk safety.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

All right. So when when this comes up, sometimes patients view, or sometimes individuals view, that a certain medication is better than a certain medication, or there's a there's higher control standards. Let's talk, let's talk about that. So what is the when we think about safety of a compounding pharmacy, what do we need to think about?

SPEAKER_03 4:17

So it's interesting when you talk about uh compounding pharmacy because there is a bunch of regulations of what we can and cannot say. And so um, no compounded medication is FDA approved. But why is that? Because when we make something on site that is individual to a patient, it's not going through the FDA's new drug approval process. So we can't make that comment. But that doesn't necessarily mean compounding medications are unsafe. We work within a mainframe of regulatory scrutiny. So every state has a board of pharmacy that will oversee a compounding pharmacy. Um we follow in the 503A space, USP, that is our standards of minimum standards of how we have to operate as we compound. And then we also have oversight from the FDA on the 503A space. They may come and visit, they may not. Um, but primarily state board boards of pharmacies were really following those USP guidelines.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Years ago, there was some bad press that came out of the compounding world. Yeah. Okay. Probably around 2013. I think that's the the meninja cockle, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Yeah, and ECC.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

Yeah. That was all that was a there was a whole label of that. It was called something at that time. But that there was some negative attention to that. Of course. But it that really occurred because somebody just wasn't doing what they were supposed to be doing correctly.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Aaron Powell 100%. 100%. When you know it's been a blemish on the industry, and and that's and that's why when you talk about compounding pharmacies doing it the right way, we all want to do the best, safest practice to serve our patients and help our providers. It's the bad actors that sometimes come through and they don't do it the right way, but that's gonna blow up and get all the press, right? And so when they investigated that, there was a numerous findings of unsanitary conditions, bad practices that from a compounder who tries to do everything the right way, you would look at that and be like, we would never do that. But someone was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Um you know, and and that is not unique to just 503A and 503B pharmacies. Uh you know, like I was on the I was on the web one time and I was looking at violations of another large pharmaceutical company. Sure. Yeah. Oh my goodness. And it's tracked. Yeah. Every violation, you know, so it's not unique to any one industry because like sometimes it I think it is there's a misconception put in place that, oh, there's only a problem here. And that's not the case at all. I mean, there's there's violations that go on all over, and then there's recalls that happen with big pharmaceutical companies too. You know, it's across the board.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

Yeah, absolutely. And and when you look at the regulations, like compounders have have certain ones, 503A, 503B have certain ones, pharma has certain ones, and all these regulations and rules are to mitigate risk. But you can never mitigate it 100% away. And some but sometimes what you hear in the news is whatever the narrative is. But you're exactly correct. There's violations across the board because they're very scrutinous with these regulations. And it's not just compounding pharmacies, it's it's in pharma, it's all the way up. Um, I'm sure patients can think of a recall of OTC products. That's right. Right? That's right. And so and so they're supposed to follow good manufacturing practices and there was a violation or something went wrong, and they had to recall us. So nobody's perfect, right? But it happens across the board.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Yeah, there's human, there's going to be human errors across the board, but the key thing is trying er, you know, er trying to find those the the good ones out there that are trying to do the right things all the time. Now, compounding pharmacy really got a lot of publicity to make to in the weight loss space to make GLP, you know, to to fill the gap of shortages in the GLP drugs. Yeah. So why don't you talk to me about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Man, the GLB, GLP wave. Um it has been incredible to be a part of that because it really has brought just the practice of compounding into kind of mainstream. And you know, prior to that, you talk to providers or media or patients, and people may have heard it made it out. Today, I I feel like the majority of people have. So we were in an unprecedented time where we had a blockbuster drug that went into shortage for a really long time. Right. And when I talk about blockbuster drug, we're talking about a drug that was helping with diabetes, weight loss, potentially sleep apnea, potential use in anti-inflammatory with data coming out, um, potential help in addiction. Like this drug, you know, could be considered a miracle drug. But the problem was we were in a two-year period where it was on the FDA shortage list that the pharmaceutical industry could not produce enough of this. And what compounders did is they stepped up and they filled the gap. They were able to make this product because it was on shortage and get it to patients to have a continuity of care, what no matter what they were taking it for. Um, but because it was a blockbuster drug, there were so many indications for it, so many people wanted it, and it was on shortage for such a long, long time, compounded kind of blew up and got into the spotlight.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

They did. And then it grew into not just with just semaglutide as we know about, it grew into the next one. And what is um what do you see in the future like this online, social media, red or true tide? What's going on in there?

SPEAKER_03 9:15

So reditrude is the is the is the next one. Um I haven't catched caught up on it in a minute. Last I knew it was in phase three clinical trials. So it is not an approved drug, right? So no one should be compounding it to date. Um there are some people getting their hands on either reditrude or something similar from RD uh producers. That I want to make that sure that's clear. That's not compounding, right? And so to compound a drug, it's gotta make three criteria. One of three. It either has to have a USP or NF monograph, it has to be a component of FDA approved drug, or beyond the FDA uh approved bulks list. And Reditrite is none of those. So no pharmacy should be making that today.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

No licensed, license, state licensed, inspected pharmacy should be making that as of today.

SPEAKER_03 10:07

As of today. Now, let's talk about if and when it gets approved. So there's a couple scenarios that may play out, and we don't have a crystal ball. But say it gets approved. Now we've seen this with other GLP medications. If it goes on shortage, absolutely, I think compounders step in and fill a gap because it is a highly anticipated GLP medication that people are raving about. If it doesn't go on shortage, I don't know if compounders play a role. We'll have to see. Um, but it's too early to tell. And what we have to do is we have to wait for that molecule to go through the process. We have to make sure that it is approved before compounding even thinks about kind of touching it and getting involved with patients.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

How about that? I did not uh because I see it available out there. You know, like I'm just like I'm just sitting here going, wow. Okay, I didn't that piece that you just told me that it it has to meet those three criteria. I uh I'm a little bit shocked on that one. I didn't know those three criteria. Interesting. Um sourcing, you know, like another thing that comes up in the clinic all the time. Where do compounding pharmacies get their products from? Yeah. And then how after you get to raw products, it starts with, you know, like you need to like lay this out for me. Yeah. Like the COAs and all of this kind of stuff. And then the inspection process and making sure it doesn't have endotoxins, like walk me through this whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Yeah. It's a great, great question. Um yeah, we'll start start at the beginning. So, first and foremost, in compounding, we can only use FDA registered manufacturers. Most of those manufacturers are overseas, primarily China and India, right? So, step number one, if we're gonna bring in a product, we're gonna verify that they are registered with the FDA.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

That would be the core manufacturer of the raw material.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

Correct. Yeah, budget. And then the majority, depending on the size of the pharmacy, but I would say probably the majority of pharmacies go through kind of like a wholesaler repacker. And those are entities that are gonna purchase from the manufacturer and they're gonna repack it in usable amounts to then sell and ship to the pharmacy. So those also have to be registered repackers with the FDA. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

It's almost like a chain of custody.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

Correct. And so so depending on the repacker, um, they may just be taking the C of A from the manufacturer because every manufacturer has to have a C of A of the product, which has max and min's requirements of potency, endotoxin, what's in there, heavy metals might be reported. Some repackers go above and beyond and they do their own third-party testing. So they might send, here's the manufacturer, here's our third party. Some might have in-house testing. So it depends on where you're purchasing them. There's a level of um quality and safety in there. Then it gets to the pharmacy. And when we get a we get a powder, we're going to unpack it, we're going to make sure that the container's integrity hasn't been compromised. We're going to make sure it comes with that C of A. We're going to look at it. There are some repackers that have been doing this forever, some of the biggest names, right? And their quality, industry standard isn't questioned. However, with all the kind of the highlights in compounding, we see new and new kind of wholesalers or repackers getting into the game. And one of the processes that we do, um, which isn't mandatory, but we like an extra layer, is when we get it from someone that we haven't done business with and maybe new in the market, we're gonna take that and we're gonna send it to our third-party lab. And we're gonna make sure that what their COVA says and what they come our lab comes back, that that it matches. Oh, verification.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

So you're verifying what's coming to you. Correct. So we we trust, but we verify. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's incredible. Uh so is so the third party lab third party lab in that COA, what's in the COA? Is the potency?

SPEAKER_03 13:44

What is the Yeah, so so potency, water content, like it's the assay of the drug, it could could list uh min and max if there's impurities or heavy metals, um, it could be endotoxin level. It kind of varies depending on the API, but those are kind of like the highlights. And you're checking all of those. And one of the things that we have to do, um, you know, water content, we have to calculate for how much water is it, because it's it's not active, right? So we're gonna calculate that, and that's gonna change how much we use in our formulator lot to lot based on that water activity to make sure our final product potency is consistent.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Now, something I've often wondered about. Is there a cheaper is not always better for the raw materials?

SPEAKER_03 14:25

100%. Okay, let's talk about it. 100 100%. So um I think this is something you can carry through the whole healthcare thing. Okay. Uh cheaper is not always better for the raw material, cheaper is not always better for the compound of product, cheaper is not always better for the physician, right? So I I I I truly believe that. I'm not saying cheap is bad, but quality matters. Yeah. And quality starts before the prescription. It starts with the pharmacy and its processes and flows all the way through to the patient. And sometimes what you don't realize is if there's a different manufacturer, and not that, not necessarily that it's bad, it might check all the boxes, but maybe they're offering a cheaper product, whatever that delta is. And you're like, oh, this is great. But then you got to read the C of A because if they're on the lower level of the potency or assay, I'm going to have to adjust and use more of that powder to maintain potency in my compound or product, where the more expensive one might have a better and then and it's less. So you might actually have to use more of the cheaper one, which actually ends up being more expensive when you look at the whole picture compared to the more expensive one, where if you just use that and you're using the S powder, it actually saves you money.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

So as you, you know, because you're in the space and the the certain raw material suppliers and the people, the the repackagers and all that, you kind of know who's the standard out there, the industrial standard.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And and like I said, with with the updated limelight on compounding, you are getting people coming all out of the woodwork saying they're a repacker, saying they I usually just brush them off. I don't deal with that. We we try to stay in the mainstay of who we know. You know, one of the things that I do, I I try to be an individual within the network of compounding pharmacies, you know, travel across the country, I go to compounding events, I make sure that I can meet and greet these repackers or suppliers, shake hands, put a face-to-names, not just someone who's randomly emailing saying, hey, I can get you some active pharmaceutical ingredients.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Now, like I and I know this does not apply to compounding pharmacies, but online products that are available right now. This is kind of getting kind of squirrely right out there right now. There's a lot of stuff that's available. Um they're not coming from compounding pharmacies. They're coming from research suppliers. Correct. And uh independent labs have, you know, like have talked about this and verified that there's a huge percentage of these products that have endotoxins in them and different things are contaminated.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

So where did it go wrong? What went wrong there?

SPEAKER_03 16:47

Well, the RD, right, the the way they're getting away with it, or the loophole as I understand it, is they label it specifically research and development only, not for human use, right? So when you look at the regulators, they're like, well, they're not a pharmacy, so I don't know what to do. And as compounders, like, no, no, this is a problem. This is a problem because, you know, to the layman or to the patient, they're like, they see the same name. If they don't know the info that we're trying to get out right here on this podcast, they're like, same, same, not the same, same. RD does not have that regulatory oversight, right? So that means you could have Joe Schmoe in his garage, wherever in the world, putting some powder into a vial and shipping that to you. It's normally these are online sites that will take a credit card payment and ship you product. That's that's not compounded medication. Compounded medication requires a prescription, it requires a patient provider relationship. Um why why did that come about? I really think because of the the GLP craze, the peptide craze, people are seeing like this is a new wave of medicine. There is opportunity there. There's no doubt about that. And people are trying to capitalize on that, but again, at patient's detriment almost.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Yeah, there's six people, right. Um I just saw the news release in uh in Australia. I think there's six individuals that took red or two tride.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

They're liver failure right now. Yeah. So it's like it's just break it. I think last week it they kind of were talking about that.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Yeah. I mean, we're not talking about inert ingredients from the active side, and we're not and and the the contaminants or the endotoxins can also do really, really damage. And and the problem is what I think is happening too is maybe someone tries it once and they're okay, but it varies so much vial to vial, lot to lot, that you could be okay with one, and the next next one you have hives and you're going to the ER.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Trevor Burrus, that's right. Well, yeah, and we talked about this on another show. I was uh uh one of our project managers that helped us build one of our clinics in Manassas. They uh he was working on a project in on the east side of Washington, D.C. And uh there was a food truck there. He went up, he took his his workers over there. They you know, he shouldn't write- I always tell him, I go, uh uh, you know, you shouldn't be buying food at a food truck anyway, right? But he walks up there and they're selling they're selling peptides on the food truck.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

Yeah. I mean, that is where we are, and it is insane. And I'm sure, I mean, how many patients do you have coming in the clinic asking it up, asking about peptides, bringing them up?

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's just absolutely crazy at this point. So another big space that they uh as compounders get involved with, obviously, you guys are involved heavily in the biodentical hormone space. Yeah. And uh, why don't you walk me through that a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Yeah, so um BHRT or biodenttical hormone replacement therapy has kind of been a bread and butter for compounding forever. And the reason that is, is because you you take, you know, what I said is it's personalized medicine, right? And there's nothing more personalized than hormones. You take an individual with a provider relationship and you draw labs and you kind of see where they are in the process. And as people age, their hormone levels are always going to vary differently, right? And that's a perfect way for compounding to help because we can specifically make a hormone replacement therapy to that individual that is going to adjust their hormone levels to the right um levels that the provider deems necessary to make them feel better. And what people don't realize as they age, talking to so many patients, is you know, I'm 40, 45 years old, this is just how I feel. And you kind of like it's it's my world. So I'm like, yeah, you'd maybe go just go see a functional medicine doc. Go see this doc, you know, just just try to get a level on your hormones. And they're like, okay, yeah. I went and got my hormones checked, and you know, a lot of minor male patients are like, yeah, the testosterone's on. I'm like, yeah, you ever thought about TRT? Like, not really. I was like, why don't you just try it? Just try it. And uh, you know, I benefit because I get to kind of go along the ride because I usually use my pharmacy. And then after they are on it, they're like, I didn't realize I could feel this good at this age. I believe people don't know what they don't know, and it's just, you know, I'm getting older and this is how I feel, but you don't have to feel that way. Right. It it's it's you know, it's amazing. So yeah, that's something that we've done for a long time and I see us continue doing for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

The uh the big one too is for women, you know, there is no FDA-approved testosterone formula. Right. And and it is becoming much more mainstream for women to, you know, pri previous you know, 10 years ago, I mean, we were at weight loss and vitality, but um, for a long, long time, nobody's checking women's testosterone levels. And and to you know, to to get the hormones covered on women, a lot of times you got to go that route.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

You gotta have a compound information. 100%. Um, yeah. And and when you're talking women, we're doing dealing with a few more hormones than men, right? It's a little more complex, but it's such a testosterone is such a big piece. And um, you know, I think we're getting a little more mainstream. People are getting into a place where they're thinking about longevity, they're thinking about wellness, they're thinking about preventative medicine, and hormones kind of fit in there somewhere. Absolutely. Right. And and it has taken, you know, I'm not as long old as some of my colleagues, but I think it has taken us so long to get rat uh away from some bad articles that were published in the past, right, about um safety risks that we found. out through more data, probably more myth than fact, right? And unless a practitioner took time to really analyze that, they're like, oh, we can't do it. Ham hormones are safe. Well we we have now have a base of data that that's probably not the fact.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Yeah we certainly not the fact. We know that. What's the craziest compound you've ever been involved making?

SPEAKER_03 22:19

Oh man. So you know the coolest thing about compounding is you know we have our bread and butter, right? BHRT, some injectable, but like sometimes we go from compounding where still compounding, but like all of a sudden we have to do RD and compounding because there are there are things that doc's like, oh I got a problem here. I'm like give me a couple weeks and I'll figure it out. A couple of things that come come to mind um that I like to tell people because I think they can relate is I think one of the coolest things we do is medicated lollipops and we can flavor those whatever you want. It's great for anything going on in the mouth, whether it's just numbing for you know cancer patients, radiation, oral pain and like they're little lollipops, right? And they suck on them and they last a long time and they do great. Going back to the GLP craze, I think one of the coolest stories I got a call from a veterinarian and this wasn't newer revolutionary because we were doing compounded GLPs at the time but he's like hey I'm calling you from XYZoo. I'm like okay. And I apologize I can't remember if it was a monkey or orangutan. I have a diabetic overweight um primate and and you're close and we would like to try compounded GLP and I'm like yeah that sounds cool. So we did it um helped help it lose weight and for Christmas we got a card from the veterinarian with a photo of the primate like with a little like kind of like signature. So I always like that story. I think it's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

I I pretty much can almost guarantee that on on when this when this posts on on YouTube and we get it out there, I'm almost positive that that will be the only time the story there that no one has ever been on YouTube saying that we made you know the GOP one was made for Haranic. I just I just don't think that was on there. Yeah. I think the the very very first time that I used a compounding pharmacy um gosh that was back in um early 2000s uh we had a patient with a really really kind of an aggressive planner wart. Yeah and uh and a and a and a physician told me oh yeah just compound up some 5FU DMSO and some salicytic acid and that was the first exposure I ever had with a compounding pharmacy and it worked. Yeah you know that that that com combination of medication. So if you were going to talk to a patient patient comes up to you and says um I'm thinking you know if if you knew a patient was looking for a compounding pharmacy what advice would you give that patient to making sure they're going to the right pharmacy what top five things or something that you would advise them to make sure this, this, this match so you know you're doing getting a good pharmacy.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Yeah so let's just take it from first like is a good pharmacy, right? So I think transparency is key. If you're getting any reluctance from whatever entity you're working with about transparency, um, that's red flag number one. So you should be able to talk to a pharmacist you should be able to ask questions about sourcing your compound. Not necessarily that we're going to give you all the data because I don't know if you can understand it, but like yeah we can tell you it's FDA registered it's come from here blah blah blah blah blah. The other thing is go to your uh most board of pharmacies has a license verification lookup. Now sometimes it's hard depending on the entity's name to get it but I'd say 90% of the time look it up. Make sure they have a standing license in the state that you plan to um purchase a medication with our trade association which is the Alliance for pharmacy compounding which is AC for P sorry no it is A4PC.org has a pharmacy finder where people who utilize a trade association they're registered state licensed pharmacies patients can go there use the search tool it'll bring them to a state licensed compounding pharmacy and the biggest takeaway is some of the things that we kind of talked about today right um compounding is about personalization compounding fills important patient gaps cheaper is not always better right and the compounding pharmacy pharmacist is really part of your healthcare team they can help try to solve problems and be kind of that part of that triangle between provider patient pharmacist so use them as a resource.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Oh great information yeah so I mean I really I mean I think this is all very useful information and uh um I think it's great for the listening audience to kind of get this information out because this is important. And I I see I see compounding I I see the market growing over the years. I see the I see this giant shift in medicine right now. I I concur and agree with everything you said about you you're starting to you're starting to see a trend in medicine where patients are more concerned about the personalized touch of medicine. It's not so disease focused it's more the print of it, the preventive the longevity you know I don't want to use that word anti-aging. That's kind of like not such a good word right now. But um I I definitely see the medicine trending differently right now. And I and and honestly with these new new medications and the peptides that are coming out and all of these things, they fall really nicely in this space and medicine is moving so fastly that quite honestly the FDA can't even keep up with the approval of these products. Right. You know that's another factor that involves this. So yeah great information Scott. All right I really appreciate you being on the show today. All right and if you guys enjoyed the show uh make sure you click or subscribe hit the subscribe button below and we will see you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Thanks for joining us on Vitality Unfiltered with David Bowder.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Addressing norms, busting myths and uncovering health realities for a more vibrant life today. For more expert insights and real talk make sure to subscribe and join us next time