David Brancaccio

Thank you very much for the briefing.

Beal is a big name up there.

I had another Mr. Beal as my stern driver's ed instructor in high school.

Look, signal, and look, young fella.

David Brancaccio, Marketplace Morning Report from APM, American Public Media.

Whose job is it to make sure off-brand weight loss compounds are up to snuff?

I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles.

The Food and Drug Administration says it's preparing to rein in a key corner of the prescription weight loss drug market, compounding pharmacies and telehealth companies that mix together components and dispense lower-cost versions of these medicines.

These represent competition to the rights holders of GLP-1 drugs, Novo Nordisk of Denmark and Eli Lilly of Indiana.

Originally, the government allowed the off-brand system to deal with a shortage.

Marta Voshinska is a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution's Center on Health Policy.

She joins us now.

Welcome.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for having me.

I want to start with compounders.

They were allowed to assemble these weight loss medicines because initially there was a shortage.

But we covered this.

Regulators some time ago declared the shortage over.

How have these compounders kept at it?