Comment by cthalupa

Compounding pharmacies are in many ways just a continuation of the original apothecaries and pharmacies, and the US is hardly the only country with the legal framework that allows this.

Australia was basically a carbon copy of the US in this regard until 2024, but they have specifically started targeting a lot of the "wellness" compounding that includes peptides, GLP-1s, etc. since then.

Germany has two classes of pharmacy that are nearly the exact same as 503A and 503B compounders in the US

Canada is similar but stricter about the big pharmacies turning into de facto manufacturers, pumping out huge quantities for downstream compounders and clinics, which is what happened in the US.

Lots of other countries that you might not consider "proper countries" (whatever that means) follow a very similar system to the US, and lots of countries that allow some form of compounding, like the UK through their "specials" program, but it's much more centralized - basically cutting out the 503A compounders in the US.

Fundamentally compounding pharmacies offer pretty important services - there are people out there that would literally not be able to take the most effective medication for their condition without the compounding pharmacies making formulation changes that the larger manufacturers might not have incentive to make. Their existence quite literally saves lives. So it becomes a matter of not making that so restrictive that you wind up killing people due to restricted access vs. letting it get abused in situations like we're seeing today with tirzepatide and semaglutide.