Manufacturers must be assured that there will be a return on their investment when entering the market place with a drug product. Therefore, there are limited chemical forms, dosage forms, strengths, flavors and packaging that are available for the physician to prescribe and the pharmacist to dispense. Compounding allows the physician to prescribe a custom-tailored medication that is not available commercially. Pharmacists prepare small quantities of a prescription more frequently to ensure stability of the product for its intended use. Physicians prescribe a commercially available medication in a different dosage form to meet a specific patient need and ensure patient compliance.
Some patients have difficulty swallowing a capsule and require a troche or lozenge.
Many pediatric patients are non-compliant because their medications are bitter, but become compliant when the medication is flavored to their liking. No other health care professional has studied chemical compatibilities and can prepare dosage forms. Even when modern scientific technologies have produced new chemical entities, the ability of the pharmacist to combine one or more chemicals into a new preparation or process the existing dosage form into one that is better suited to the patient's needs, has remained the domain of the pharmacist. Compounding of medications by pharmacists is a long-standing and traditional part of pharmacy.