According to the FDA, compounded drugs can serve an important medical need for patients who cannot be treated with an FDA-approved medication, such as a patient who has an allergy and needs a drug to be made without a certain dye, or an elderly patient or a child who cannot swallow a tablet or capsule and needs a medicine in a liquid dosage form.
Practitioners in hospitals, clinics, and other health care facilities sometimes provide compounded drugs to patients when an FDA-approved drug is not medically appropriate to treat them.