What is Compounding?

Commercially manufactured medicines are made for the average patient. Compounding returns pharmacy to its original purpose: preparing a medicine specifically for the person in front of us. Working from a prescription, our pharmacists combine pharmaceutical-grade ingredients into the exact strength, dosage form and flavour a patient needs.

That might be a preservative-free eye drop, a hormone troche at a strength that is not commercially available, a paediatric suspension in place of a tablet, a topical analgesic that avoids systemic side effects, or a discontinued medicine that a patient still relies on. Every preparation is made in our North Perth laboratory to documented formulation records.

• Strengths and doses not available commercially
• Alternative dosage forms — creams, capsules, troches, drops, suspensions
• Removal of allergens such as lactose, gluten, dyes or preservatives
• Flavoured formulations for children and animals
• Combination preparations that simplify a complex regimen
• Continuity of supply for discontinued medicines

Pharmacy and compounding are inseparable. For most of recorded history the pharmacist both prepared and supplied the medicine — specialisation first emerged around Baghdad in the ninth century, spread through Europe as alchemy, and gradually became chemistry as physicians abandoned what could not be demonstrated. The distinction between the pharmacist as compounder and the physician as clinician was not widely accepted until well into the nineteenth century.

The word "pharmacy" derives from the Greek pharmakon, meaning remedy. The art it describes — preparing a remedy secundum artem, according to the art — remained essential to the majority of prescriptions dispensed as recently as the 1920s.

Oxford Compounding has been preparing personalised medicines in North Perth for decades. Our pharmacists and technicians work directly with prescribers on formulation selection, strength, base and stability, then compound each preparation under documented quality procedures.

• Over 20 pharmacists and technicians across non-sterile and sterile laboratories
• More than 5,000 formulations prepared for patients and prescribers
• Ingredients sourced from approved, traceable suppliers
• Practices aligned with TGA and Pharmacy Board compounding standards
• PCCA membership giving access to peer-reviewed formulations and training
• Batch records, quality checks and analytical testing where required