Compounding Advocacy Group Has New Name, Website

Members of the former International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists voted in November 2019 to change the association’s name to the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding (APC). As of January 1, 2020, the new name has become official.

The name change follows a relocation of the organization’s headquarters from Houston, Texas to Alexandria, Virginia, in July 2019.

The organization’s new logo and website were debuted in December 2019, as APC aims to “represent the entire scope of pharmacy compounding,” according to APC Board Chair Jennifer Burch, owner of Central Compounding in Durham, North Carolina.

“We'll be welcoming these new constituencies to our organization because there's strength in numbers,” Burch said, in a prepared statement. “Pharmacy compounding professionals, prescribers, and patients alike stand to gain from our advocacy work."

The APC is an advocate on a number of issues related to patient access to compounded medications, including: encouraging national academies and chapters to seek input from prescribers, and dispensers of compounded bioidentical hormone replacement therapy; appealing beyond-use date restrictions in the new USP <795> and <797> chapters; and proposing a “middle way” to the FDA on a memorandum of understanding regarding state level regulation of patient-specific compounded medications.

Looking ahead in 2020, the APC plans to accomplish different strategies towards their success, such as:

• Assuring patient access to compounded medications
• Ensuring that compounding professionals have the knowledge and resources needed to excel in pharmacy compounding
• Building a multi-disciplinary community of compounding pharmacy professionals engaged in learning from each other

REFERENCE

Compounding group becomes Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding [news release]. Alexandria, VA: A4PC; January 7, 2020. [email]. Accessed January 7, 2020.