An approval claim needs a product name.

What an approval confirms

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a US agency responsible for reviewing medicines.

Approval means it has reviewed evidence for a specific product and agreed to a named use.

Ask for that use in ordinary words. Then ask how it relates to the problem you want treated.

A pharmacy-made product has a different status

Making or mixing a custom medicine is called compounding.

Compounded medicines lacked approval from FDA on September 26, 2026.

Before these drugs reach the market, FDA does not review how safe they are, their quality or how well they work.

There can be a legitimate reason to compound a drug: the patient has a medical need that an approved medicine cannot meet.

Registration and codes are weaker claims

FDA registration puts a business on the agency’s register. As of September 26, 2026, registration by itself gave no approval of the business or its drugs and no permission to sell a drug.

National Drug Code is shortened to NDC. This number lists a specific drug product in a government directory. Having that number gives no proof that FDA approved the product.

Ask for the exact product name and look it up in Drugs@FDA, the agency’s approved-drug database. The record names the product and links to its approved label, which says what it treats. Match the name and form, such as tablet or injection, with the product offered to you.

A bottle for lab research is not an approved treatment

“Research use only” describes lab research. A bottle marked “not for human use” is not meant to be taken by people. As of September 26, 2026, FDA warned people to avoid weight-care products sold with these labels for human use.

Some sellers offered bottles for human treatment while labelling them “research use only”. In letters reviewed as of September 26, 2026, FDA warned those sellers that the products were unapproved drugs.

The letters describe what FDA said those particular sellers had done wrong. They are warning letters, rather than court decisions.

Selling a product to treat people brings it under drug law even when its label says it is for research.