We’re excited that patients and physicians now have access to Azelastine Hydrochloride USP as an ingredient option in compounded medications. There are some commercial products available, including a combination product, but when those items don’t fit the specific needs of patients, we need to put on our thinking caps and start looking for other options for them. We’re sure that you compounders out there can come up with a few of your own as well.

By Maria Carvalho, PharmD, MRPharmS, PhD. She is the Manager of PCCA Science.

I always found compounding interesting. As a young pharmacist, working in the hospital world and later for chain pharmacy, I was always intrigued by the uniqueness of it. I was not fulfilled by hospital or chain pharmacy, though. In the chain world, I was a supervisor of 25 stores. I felt unfulfilled in that position and left to gain experience in independent pharmacy.

My father is a pharmacist. He owned a store for over 20 years, and I worked for him for 17 years. It was a family-oriented store—independent—and my parents, my brother and I worked together there. I loved filling prescriptions and learning the field as well as working with customers who became like family to us. It was the kind of job you enjoyed going to every day.

By Bryan Prescott, Pharm D-- Bryan is the Director of Management Coaching Services for PCCA’s Compounding Pharmacy Management Services.

On July 27, 2018, the Compounding Expert Committee of the United States Pharmacopeial Convention published proposed revisions to USP chapter <797> Pharmaceutical Compounding – Sterile Preparations. The proposed chapter is open to public comments until November 30, 2018, and is expected to become official on December 1, 2019.

On March 30, 2018, the Compounding Expert Committee of the United States Pharmacopeial Convention published proposed revisions to USP chapter <795> Pharmaceutical Compounding – Nonsterile Preparations. The revised chapter was open to public comments until July 31, 2018, and is expected to become official on December 1, 2019. Major revisions to the chapter include, but are not limited to, the following:

I didn’t start out in pharmacy, but I did start out in health care. I worked as a diagnostic medical sonographer for eleven years. An opportunity presented itself in 2004 to work at a compounding pharmacy helping to manage the hormone patients. Within months, I become a certified technician and went to PCCA for primary and aseptic training.

I wanted to do something in the medical field but couldn’t stand needles or the site of blood, so pharmacy was the most logical choice. Fast forward to now: We offer immunizations and autologous eye drops (serum tears), which involve both, so I guess you could say my comfort level has changed. But looking back, I wouldn’t have changed anything.

Pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined. It represents an important public health issue that is associated with a wide range of injury and disease. As a result, an estimated 20% of patients with chronic pain receive an opioid prescription when visiting physician offices, and rates of opioid prescribing have grown significantly, in particular for family practice, general practice and internal medicine.