The worldwide semaglutide shortage has sparked an ’emerging trend’ of telehealth platforms offering to prescribe locally compounded versions of the drug to treat obesity, the TGA says.

Eucalyptus, which runs telehealth platforms Juniper and Pilot, says it has two ‘partner pharmacies’ that will produce compounded semaglutide for its GPs to prescribe amid a global shortage of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic.

The company’s clinical director, GP Dr Matthew Vickers, said it was following the lead of other Australian doctors who had prescribed compounded semaglutide “for some time”.  

But the move has triggered a public warning from the TGA that compounded medicines “should be reserved for exceptional clinical circumstances where all suitable alternative treatments using approved therapeutic goods … are unavailable, have failed or are deemed unsuitable for the patient”.