USP <795>: What It Means for Compounding Pharmacies and Patient Safety

When a pharmacy mixes custom medications—like a special dose for a child or a dye-free version for someone allergic—they’re following USP <795>, a set of standards for nonsterile compounding in pharmacies that ensures medicines are safe, accurate, and stable. Also known as USP Chapter <795>, it’s not optional—it’s the baseline for every pharmacy that makes pills, creams, or liquids from scratch. If you’ve ever gotten a customized prescription that wasn’t mass-produced, USP <795> is what made sure it was done right.

This isn’t just about paperwork. USP <795>, a set of standards for nonsterile compounding in pharmacies that ensures medicines are safe, accurate, and stable. Also known as USP Chapter <795>, it’s the baseline for every pharmacy that makes pills, creams, or liquids from scratch. This isn’t just about paperwork. compounding pharmacies, pharmacies that prepare customized medications not available as commercial products must follow strict rules on clean rooms, equipment cleaning, ingredient sourcing, and expiration dating. Skip these steps, and you risk contamination, wrong dosages, or meds that fall apart before you even take them. The FDA doesn’t inspect every compounding pharmacy daily, but pharmacy standards, official guidelines that govern how medications are prepared, stored, and dispensed like USP <795> are what inspectors look for when something goes wrong.

What does this mean for you? If your doctor prescribes a medication that’s not on the shelf—say, a child’s liquid form of a pill, or a hormone cream without a certain allergen—USP <795> is the reason you can trust it. It’s why your pharmacist checks the balance, wears gloves, and labels the bottle with a use-by date. It’s why some pharmacies won’t compound certain drugs at all—they can’t meet the standard. And it’s why you should avoid online sellers offering "custom" meds without clear pharmacy credentials. The posts below show how this plays out in real life: from checking recalls on compounded meds to avoiding unsafe shortcuts in compounding, and how these rules protect people who depend on tailored treatments.

Below, you’ll find real-world examples of how USP <795> affects medication safety, pharmacy practices, and patient outcomes. Whether you’re a patient, caregiver, or just curious about how your meds get made, these articles break down the rules you never knew existed—and why they matter more than you think.