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Getting started in

compounding

Overcoming challenges in medication accessibility and providing transformative options for personalized patient care, pharmaceutical compounding is an essential solution that bridges the gap in healthcare to meet critical needs.
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What is pharmaceutical compounding?

Defined as the practice of preparing customized medications in accordance to a licensed practitioner’s prescription or essential need, pharmaceutical compounding allows providers the opportunity to:
  • Combine therapeutics
  • Personalize dosing
  • Tailor dosage forms
  • Eliminate unwanted ingredients
  • Provide solutions to product unavailability
  • Enhance patient adherence
pharmacist compounding

Discover the need

Addressing shortages
1 in 4 drugs sold annually are impacted by drug shortages in Canada1. Pharmaceutical compounding acts as a critical safety net that allows providers to fill medication needs during product unavailability, like shortages. Discover how Medisca formulas and products are saving patient lives.

Providing safe medical solutions

Compounding is a highly regulated and disciplined practice that pioneered the practice of pharmacy and maintains an essential role in society today.
Governed by Health Canada
Health Canada’s Policy of Manufacturing and Compounding Drug Products in Canada (POL-0051) provides information on compounding and establishes a framework to assist in distinguishing between compounding and manufacturing activities of drug products. Under Health Canada’s policy, healthcare professionals engaged in drug compounding must comply with applicable federal/provincial/territorial regulations and standards.
Regulated by provincial / territory authorities

The pharmacy regulatory authorities are responsible for administering provincial pharmacy legislation, including legislation on compounding which may be adapted from NAPRA’s model standards for pharmacy compounding. The required adoption of compounding practice standards in each province or territory ensures nation-wide compounding pharmacy accountability, compounding personnel safety, and patient safety.

Standardized by the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA)

NAPRA’s model standards for pharmacy compounding represent the minimum requirements to be implemented by compounding pharmacists across Canada. These standards of practice include those for non-hazardous sterile preparations, hazardous sterile preparations, and non-sterile preparations. The pharmacy regulatory authority of each province or territory can review these model standards and determine how to best implement them in their jurisdiction. 

What to look for in a
compounding pharmacy

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Commitment to quality

From the supply source to the final compounded preparation, quality is a commitment at every level of the process. When selecting a compounding pharmacy, it is important to ensure that all active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are sourced from Health Canada registered and inspected establishments that adhere to Good Manufacturing Practices and have robust vendor qualification, testing, and documentation programs. 

Discover Medisca quality
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Investment in education

It is important to ensure that all compounding pharmacy personnel are engaged in continuing education opportunities that allow them to stay up-to-date on recent advances in compounding practices and personalized medicine. This should include regular hands-on laboratory training for compounding personnel and clinical training for pharmacists involved in the clinical decision making process.

Discover LP3 Network education
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Standardized operations

Each compounding practice is required to implement and operate by a set of Policies and Procedures that identifies how they ensure compliance with standards of practice, notably compliance with NAPRA model standards. Proof of Policies and Procedures is something a provider can request. 

Learn about Medisca SOPs
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Drive for innovation

Technology is moving fast and it is important that new technology be continually evaluated and implemented into practice. Compounding was once and still can be a very manual process (mortar and pestle). Today there exists various technology and equipment, such as the Medisca MAZ® Mixer, that allows for standardization in the process, reproducibility, homogenous mixing, better quality, and more efficient and simplified processes.

Discover the MAZ Mixer

Need help
getting started?

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  1. Health Canada. (2022). Drug shortages in Canada and their implications on public drug plans, 2017/18 to 2019/20. Government of Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/patented-medicine-prices-review/services/npduis/analytical-studies/posters/capt2022-drug-shortages-canada.html. 
  2. McPherson, T.B. et al. (2013). Patient-centered care as a value-added service by compounding pharmacies. International Journal of Pharmaceutical Compounding, Vol 17. P 339-343.

  3. Azer, S.A., Kanugula, K., & Kshirsagar, R.K. (2023). Dysphagia NIH – National Library of Medicine. StatPearls.

  4. Beubler, E., et al. (2006). The white paper on opioids and pain: A pan-European challenge: The European white paper on the use of opioids in chronic pain management. J Pain Palliative Care Pharmacother., 20, 79-87.

  5. Branvold, A & Carvalho, M. (2014). Pain management therapy: the benefits of compounded transdermal pain medication. J Gen Practice. 2:6.

  6. Vowles KE, McEntee ML, Julnes PS, Frohe T, Ney JP, & van der Goes DN (2015). Rates of opioid misuse, abuse, and addiction in chronic pain: a systematic review and data synthesis. Pain, 156, 569–576.
  7. Simon, JA. (2014). What if the Women’s Health Initiative had used transdermal estradiol and oral progesterone instead? Menopause. 21(7):769–783.
  8. Biondi, B & Wartofsky, L. (2012). Combination treatment with T4 and T3: toward personalized replacement therapy in hypothyroidism? J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 97:2256–2271. 
  9. Bieber, T. (2013). Advances in the management of atopic dermatitis. Future Science Group.
  10. Koyama, G., Liu, J., Scaffidi, A., Khazraee, M., & Epstein, B. (2015). Novel Approaches to Topical Psoriasis Therapy. International journal of pharmaceutical compounding, 19(5), 357–365.

  11. Hay R.J., et al. (2014). The global burden of skin disease in 2010: An analysis of the prevalence and impact of skin conditions. Journal of iIvestigative Dermatology. 134(6): 1527-1534