Drug facts

What is compounded semaglutide?

By David Chen·Editor·Reviewed September 2026

The short answer, in full¹

FDA defines compounding as a practice in which a licensed pharmacist or physician, or someone supervised by a pharmacist at an outsourcing facility,

combines, mixes or alters ingredients of a drug to create a medication tailored to the needs of an individual patient.

It sits next to a plain statement of what that does not include: ²

Compounded drugs are not FDA-approved. This means that FDA does not verify the safety, effectiveness or quality of compounded drugs before they are marketed.

So compounded semaglutide is a medicine made for a person, not a product reviewed for a population. The comparisons with the two approved injections are on compounded semaglutide vs Wegovy and compounded semaglutide vs Ozempic.

What is actually in the vial³

Each of those differences has a page. The salt forms, which FDA says are different active ingredients with no lawful basis for compounding that it knows of, are on does compounded semaglutide work? The concentration, and why the same dose is a different mark on a different syringe, is on units and milligrams. Add-ins are on B12, B6 and glycine, and the beyond-use date and FDA’s 28-day rule on how long compounded semaglutide lasts.

Not a generic, and not a tablet⁵

FDA approves a generic only when it meets the requirements for matching the brand; a compounded drug, in FDA’s words, “is not approved by FDA.” There is no generic semaglutide.

Semaglutide is also approved in more forms than people expect. Besides the Wegovy and Ozempic injections, there are approved tablets — Rybelsus, Ozempic tablets and, on Wegovy’s own current label, Wegovy tablets at 1.5, 4, 9 and 25 mg. None of them is what a compounding seller sells as “oral semaglutide”; that distinction is on is there an oral semaglutide?

Who may make it now⁴

Wegovy went onto FDA’s shortage list in March 2022 and Ozempic in August 2022, and the shortage is what allowed broad compounding. On 21 February 2025 FDA determined it resolved. State-licensed 503A pharmacies had until 22 April 2025 to stop making what is essentially a copy on the strength of the shortage, and 503B outsourcing facilities until 22 May 2025 — after which an outsourcing facility has no route to bulk semaglutide at all.

A 503A pharmacy can still compound for a named patient, but not essentially a copy of the approved drug unless a prescriber documents that the patient needs something significantly different. How large sellers continue anyway — and the policy most of them rely on — is on is compounded semaglutide still legal?

What FDA has counted³

As of 31 May 2026 FDA had received 990 reports of adverse events associated with compounded semaglutide. A report is not proof the drug caused the event. What FDA describes most specifically is dosing: reports, some requiring hospitalization, that may be related to patients measuring and self-administering incorrect doses — and prescriptions that went beyond the approved label in the size of a dose, how often it was taken, or how fast it was increased. The approved dosage chart is the reference for that, even for a vial that has no label of its own.

Before buying, the checks that matter are the pharmacy’s name and license, the concentration and active ingredient on the label, and any FDA warning letter — four checks, ten minutes, and every letter this index has matched is on the trust page. What FDA has seen go wrong is gathered on is compounded semaglutide safe?