Empowering Health: A Compounding Pharmacy Success Story

Empower Pharmacy has grown to become the largest compounding pharmacy in the United States. Find out how humble beginnings led to revolutionizing compound manufacturing.

This Houston-based compounding operation credits its success and growth to microscopic-level precision and planning. However, its founding depended on a significant amount of fate.

From Cars to Pharmacy

Empower Pharmacy founder and Chief Executive, Shaun Noorian, grew up fixing go-karts with his father. His upbringing motivated him to study mechanical engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, with visions of going to work for Ford or General Motors.

His goals were diverted as his 2007 graduation intersected with the global financial crisis, leaving the U.S. auto industry in shambles. Thus, Noorian took a job with the oilfield services company Schlumberger.

As fate would have it, Noorian injured his back lifting a heavy piece of metal. During physical therapy treatment, his doctor determined he had low testosterone.

“I was very skinny, especially for my age. They put me on testosterone replacement therapy, and I gained 10 pounds overnight,” Noorian said. “I wanted to figure out how all these drugs were made.”

Motivated by the effectiveness of his treatment and coming to understand the importance of compound pharmaceuticals, Noorian decided to apply his mechanical engineering knowledge to revolutionize the manufacturing of medications.

Small beginnings

With that, in 2009, he rented a 150 square foot converted doctor’s examination room, brought on a pharmacist, and served as a technician while canvassing doctors in the area for business.

“I hired a pharmacist, used myself as a licensed pharmacy technician, and applied what I learned as an engineer to the compounding industry,” he said. “I did that for about three years and saved up enough money to build a 1,500-square-foot facility in a shopping center.”

Fast forward, Noorian has succeeded in multiplying the scale and scope of his firm. Empower now specializes in providing specialized compounded medications that treat issues like hormone replacement, infertility, skin problems, and weight management.

Empower is operating in a unique spot where many of the conditions its drugs treat require expensive medications that have limited or no insurance coverage.

What are compounding pharmacies and outsourcing facilities?

Compounding pharmacies are pharmacies that dispense prescriptions directly to patients.
An outsourcing facility is akin to a drug manufacturer that can prepare medications for use by hospitals and clinics without the need for a patient-specific prescription. An outsourcing facility can also prepare medications for other pharmacies.

Compounding vs. commercial prescriptions

Compounded prescriptions may be essential for individuals who cannot use commercially available products because of allergies or sensitivities. For instance, if someone needs medication in a different form of administration due to an inability to swallow a tablet or capsule.

Shortages are another area where compounding pharmacies and outsourcing facilities are vital. In case a brand manufacturer can’t produce a certain medication, compounding pharmacies and outsourcing facilities can step in to fill the need for the medication created by the drug shortage.

Is Empower Pharmacy affordable?

Because Empower does not work with insurance companies, it prices many of its drugs at or less than the price of a typical patient co-payment.

Growing it alone

Empower was licensed to ship its products nationwide within its first five years of operations, allowing the company to expand its operations to 15,000 square feet. Eventually, Empower expanded to three facilities in Houston totaling 185,000 square feet.

In 2024, Empower purchased the 170,000-square-foot Eugia Manufacturing Facility in New Jersey to accompany its 503A and 503B business needs.

Empower, which started from humble beginnings, now operates as the largest compounding pharmacy in the United States and the company employs more than 1,000 people.

Additionally, being registered under the FDA’s Section 503B allows Empower to sell products in bulk (i.e., for “office use”) without a patient-specific prescription to doctor offices, clinics, and hospitals. Fewer than 50 compounders nationwide currently operate as both a 503A and a 503B facility, according to Noorian.

Patients can pick prescriptions up at Empower’s facility or have them shipped directly to customers nationwide.

Ready for growth

“One of the reasons we decided to build our current outsourcing facility was to meet the standards enacted by the FDA and voluntarily register with the agency,” Noorian said.

Moving forward, Noorian, who noted that Empower’s revenue is increasing by about 50 percent a year, said he’s comfortable with the company’s aggressive expansion plans.

That’s largely because the U.S. healthcare system which he describes as largely dysfunctional will force a larger portion of an aging population to buy much of its medications for vastly different medical needs that are not met by traditional and FDA-approved drug products without the help of insurance companies.

“If you can build a car, you can pretty much build anything,” Noorian says of the engineering pedigree that allowed him to found the company. “The current model is broken. So we have a different model.”