An offer without a prescription
For a prescription medicine to be dispensed, federal law required a valid prescription, as of September 2026.
The FDA’s online pharmacy checks ↗Ask who reviews your health history, asks any needed follow-up questions and decides whether this medicine fits your needs before writing a prescription.
“Generic” used for a pharmacy-made product
A generic is a medicine that copies a brand-name drug and has FDA approval.
The FDA, as of September 2026, warned that calling a pharmacy-made drug the generic of an approved medicine was misleading.
As of September 2026, no FDA approval applied to pharmacy-made compounded medicines.
The FDA on these advertising claims ↗Compounded means made or mixed for a patient. Ask for a clear description of the product being offered.
Different ingredients and research-only products
As of September 2026, the FDA said semaglutide sodium and semaglutide acetate were different active ingredients from the one in approved medicines.
The FDA said it knew of no lawful basis for using those ingredients to make pharmacy-made medicines, as of September 2026.
The FDA warned against semaglutide sold to people as “for research only” products, as of September 2026.
Their quality had not been established and harm was possible, the FDA said.
The FDA’s concerns about these products ↗Too little health history and no room for questions
The Federation of State Medical Boards addressed this in guidance checked in September 2026. Choosing a medicine yourself from a website’s list was not enough for proper care.
Under that guidance, the professional providing care must give patients a chance to ask their own follow-up questions.
The federation’s prescribing guidance ↗This September 2026 guidance was advice to state medical boards, rather than a nationwide ban on health questionnaires.
The concern is a prescription based only on a fixed form or a medicine you choose yourself. Ask who checks your history, asks more questions and answers yours.
An old shortage explanation
The FDA marked the semaglutide injection shortage resolved in February 2025; its September 2026 records still did not list those injections in national shortage.
As of September 2026, federal rules limited routine compounding of copies of medicines already on the market.
In September 2026, a pharmacy-made version could fall outside the copy rule when the prescriber judged that an alteration made a significant difference for the individual patient.
Being cheaper, by itself, does not satisfy that requirement.
One example of a need for a pharmacy-made medicine is an allergy to a dye in the ready-made product.
The FDA’s dated compounding updates ↗A claim that the brand is simply unavailable needs a dated answer. Ask what ingredient or other part of the medicine would change, why you need that change and why making that exact version is allowed.