Guide · when supply stops

When your supply stops, and what you are owed

Shortages, injunctions, a lapsed subscription or a proposed federal rule can all end a supply mid-course. Restarting is a clinical event rather than an administrative one — and 16 of the 87 services reviewed here publish a refund position at all.

Updated 2026-08-239 sources

A prescription that arrives monthly feels like a subscription until it does not arrive. This page is about the interval between those two states: why it happens in this market specifically, what it does clinically, and what the contract you agreed to is likely to say — which in most cases is nothing.

Missing doses is not just an interruption

The Wegovy label instructs that after two or more consecutive missed injections, escalation should be reinitiated at a lower dosage “to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal adverse reactions.” That is the important sentence. Tolerance to the gastric-emptying effect fades along with the drug, so resuming at your old dose after a three-week gap can bring back the nausea of the original titration.

Zepbound’s rule is different again — a missed dose may be taken within four days, after which it is skipped — and the two are not interchangeable. Both ladders and both missed-dose rules are in Every dose step, and what to do when you miss one.

So a supply gap is a dosing event, and the right response is a conversation with a prescriber rather than a decision made alone at the fridge. Which raises the question of whether there is a prescriber to reach.

The four ways supply stops in this market

The legal basis narrows. FDA has proposed not to include semaglutide, tirzepatide or liraglutide on the 503B bulks list — the list of substances it has found a clinical need for outsourcing facilities to compound. If finalised, that removes the legal basis for bulk-compounding most of the cheap tier. It is a proposal and it is not settled, but it is live: Brand-name vs compounded GLP-1s.
A manufacturer wins an injunction. Civil suits by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have already produced permanent injunctions against compounders, and those cases reach services people are actually enrolled with — The drugmakers are suing your pharmacy.
A product is discontinued. Saxenda is being wound down, with Novo stating last shipments to wholesalers in late January 2027. Discontinuation is announced by press release, not by your provider — Every GLP-1 brand, and what each one is licensed for.
The mundane one. A card expires, a plan lapses, a cold-chain box goes astray, or a prior authorisation runs out. This is the most common cause and the least discussed — Shipping, storage and what happens when the box is late and Insurance, HSA and FSA for GLP-1s.

What the market publishes about getting money back

Disclosure of the terms that matter when supply stops
What you would want to know	Services publishing it
Whether anything is refundable	16 of 87
How to cancel	37 of 87
How shipping works	51 of 87
What support exists between visits	60 of 87
Which pharmacy dispenses	40 of 87

Computed from the researched dataset at build time. Refunds and cancellation are the two lowest-disclosure items on the whole thirteen-point checklist, which is covered in Thirteen things a GLP-1 service should tell you before you pay — and they are precisely the two that decide what happens to your money when the medicine stops.

If it happens to you

Find out what dose you were actually on, and how long the gap has been. Both determine whether you restart where you left off or step back down the ladder.
Ask the prescriber, not the support desk. Restarting after a gap is the label’s decision to make, and it is the one thing on this list that is genuinely clinical.
Get the pharmacy name if you do not already have it. Transferring a prescription needs it, and only a minority of services publish it — How to tell a regulated GLP-1 seller from a risky one covers why it matters.
Price the alternatives before you accept a substitution. A switch between molecules is a fresh titration, not a conversion — Semaglutide vs tirzepatide and What GLP-1s actually cost in 2026.
If you are on Medicare, check whether the $50 route applies before paying cash — The Medicare GLP-1 Bridge, and the four tests you have to pass.
If you decide to stop rather than switch, read What happens when you stop first. Stopping is a decision with evidence attached, not a default.

The broader point is that continuity of supply is a feature of a service, and almost nothing in this market prices it that way. It belongs on the list of questions in Thirteen things a GLP-1 service should tell you before you pay alongside the price of the maintenance dose, and it is one of the reasons the cheapest programme is frequently not the cheapest year — The cheapest GLP-1 programmes, with the memberships added back in.

Questions

I missed two weeks. Do I go back to my old dose?

For Wegovy the label says to reinitiate escalation at a lower dosage after two or more consecutive missed doses. For Zepbound a dose can be taken within four days, after which it is skipped and the schedule resumes. Either way it is a question for the prescriber rather than a decision to make alone.

Can a provider substitute a different medication without telling me?

What you are owed depends on the terms you agreed to, which is why the low disclosure rates above matter. There is no published bridge between molecules — a substitution means starting a new titration, so it should be an explicit conversation.

Will compounded GLP-1s stop being available?

Unknown. FDA has proposed excluding semaglutide, tirzepatide and liraglutide from the 503B bulks list, and extended the comment period on that proposal; nothing has been finalised. Anyone signing a long prepaid plan should understand that the supply may not remain lawful for the length of the plan.

Is a shortage the same as a recall?

No. A shortage is an availability problem; a recall concerns a specific product already dispensed. Regulator actions against services in this market are catalogued in How to tell a regulated GLP-1 seller from a risky one, each linking the underlying document.

Sources

Everything on this page traces to one of the links below, retrieved on the date shown. Prices and programme terms in this market change without notice — confirm against the provider before you buy.