Barbell Shrugged - The Future of Personalized Medicine w/ Shaun Noorian, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #802

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

In 2009, Shaun Noorian founded Empower Pharmacy driven by a personal journey. Diagnosed with a chronic medical condition, Noorian discovered the life-changing benefits of compounded medicine. Empower was born from his desire to share this positive impact with others, with a mission to produce innovative medications that help people live healthier, happier lives, addressing the many challenges within the healthcare system. Every day, Noorian is committed to ensuring his operations align with the dedication to patient safety and satisfaction. Empower serves patients, healthcare providers, and pharmacies nationwide, leveraging advanced technology, automation, and stringent quality control systems to deliver a diverse range of sterile and non-sterile compounded medications. Work With Us: Arétē by RAPID Health Optimization   Links: Empower Pharmacy Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram  

Shrugged Family this week on Barbell Shrugged, Sean Nourian is coming in from Empower Pharmacies and he is going to be talking about the compounding pharmacies that he has been building across the nation to get precision medication to his clients. This is very cool to me because for many, many years I've been frustrated with anybody that just offers

broad generalizations on any subject that is not specific to me, my family, the people that I'm trying to help. One of the things that we do here at Rapid, which is very specific protocols to get people feeling and performing their best. And once you start doing that, you realize that the broad and general approach just isn't that awesome. It can get people to a certain point, but if they're chasing optimal or if you want specific solutions for yourself the protocols need to be precise. They need to be data-backed and that is exactly what Sean is doing at

Empower Pharmacies. As always friends if you want to get over to rapidhealthreport.com that's where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galbunner are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis and you can access that for free over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Warner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Sean Nourian.

Today on Barbell Shrugged, we're gonna be talking about the pharmaceutical industry and access to the coolest drugs that exist on this planet, like testosterone, the performance enhancing ones, the GLP-1s, and this is actually a world that I know almost nothing about. Because every time the doctor actually hands me prescription, I just throw it away.

I don't even know if it's gonna help me or not. Because I'm just like, it freaks me out because it's like one of those industries where I never get to talk to somebody like you that actually understands it and knows the good parts of it. All I hear is what goes on in Twitter. That's not the truth. That's a scary part. John, I'd love for you to kind of introduce yourself as well as a little bit of a background

and kind of dig into how you're helping people kind of get access to these or improve their access in this space. Absolutely. Thanks, Andrew. And so when I first started in this industry, I knew nothing about it as well. And arguably, I still don't fully understand it because it is so complicated. And before I was diagnosed with low testosterone, I was working out the oil fields, doing hydraulic fracturing as a field engineer. And one day I got injured while I was working on the job. And that's

what really forced me into the healthcare system for the first time since I was 11 years old. And by that time, I was 25 years old, I was 125 pounds, 5'10", just always been skinny. Of course, having very little muscle mass on my frame, my body couldn't handle the heavy oilfield pipes that I was lifting. So I lifted one the wrong way and I hemorrhaged my lower vertebrae. So when I went to physical therapy after that, my doctor quickly looked me up and down, noticed I was very skinny for my age and decided to test my blood for testosterone and determined that I had the testosterone level of an 80 year old man. And of course, then he sent me to specialist living right here in Houston. I was very lucky

to be able to get access to one of the greatest specialists in the world, having the largest medical center in the world in our hometown. And he quickly diagnosed me with a pituitary disorder in that I don't create luteinizing hormone or follicle stimulating hormone, which is the source of my low testosterone. And so he sent me to a compounding pharmacy. And why did he send me to a compounding pharmacy? Well, because he was so great. He realized that if he personalized his prescriptions to his patients, they would likely receive better outcomes.

Then if he just sent me to a Walgreens, I got that same one size fits all pill for the entire population. That's why I don't like it. Cause I feel like it's not for me. That's right, it's not for you. It's for everybody. Right?

We have our own individual differences, different ages, different weights, different genetics, different everything. And so, and you know, there are a lot of formulations out there that could be more beneficial than that just that one formulation. And that's where compounding pharmacies come in,

because not only can we personalize the medications, but in many cases, the medications are a fraction of the cost compared to the nutritional supply chain, which just consists of so many unnecessary middlemen that increase the cost every single time that drug changes hands from one to the other. And so that was my introduction to this industry. I got my medications from this compounding pharmacy here in Houston. I took them. They changed my life. I went from less than 200 nanograms per deciliter to close to a thousand. So I have five times as much testosterone as normally that I had throughout my entire life. And so I gained my depression went away. I got more libido, stamina, endurance, all the things that traditionally these medications

provide athletes, but they don't just put on for athletes. They provide them for anybody, practically anybody that would qualify for testosterone replacement therapy. And as an engineer, I was taking these medications that changed my life. And I wondered, how are they made? And why are they so expensive? And so, I started doing some research on the pharmaceutical industry. I went to as many conferences, seminars, and read as many books on the subject as I could find. And then I decided to start my own

compounding pharmacy, giving patients like myself access to these life-changing medications at a great service level, great quality level, and at the lowest cost possible. And so over the past 16 years, as I founded the company, we've grown to become the largest compounding pharmacy in the country, serving several million patients, providing these personalized solutions that we patients will rely on for the rest of our lives because the vast majority of them are chronic in nature. Low testosterone doesn't fix itself.

It actually gets worse as we age, along with many other disease states that patients have to deal with. So what we focus on is trying to create a more virtuous pharmaceutical supply chain where we get rid of all the unnecessary middlemen, the PBMs, the insurance carriers, and we only accept cash. And by accepting cash and being the manufacturer, wholesaler and pharmacy all in one, we vertically

integrate that supply chain and remove all these unnecessary middlemen. And that's why our medications are a fraction of the cost compared to the true system while at the same time being personalized. So that's really what we're focusing on. And there's a huge need in this country for not just a preventative medicine and quality of life medicine, but also for medicine that patients don't become non-compliant with because they simply get priced out of the market, because the pharmaceutical market increases its prices by about 10% a year on average.

I mean, if you're going to live the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years of your life, imagine that kind of compounded interest over time. So something needs to change in this country and that's what we're trying to create. Yeah, I'm actually super interested. You bring up three pieces there of having a great product and a great service, all personalized to that specific person. And then the third one doesn't fit into that kind of trifecta there of reducing costs.

Usually the more personalized the service and the more personalized the product, the more expensive everything is going to be. Two parts to this, one, vertically integrating your company obviously is a piece of that. But in the main or in the normal distribution of these, where do all the costs come from? Because testosterone, I don't think is that expensive. It's not that expensive of a drug, but if you go to the store or you go to the clinic

or whatever, now you start paying a lot of money for this stuff. Right, so let's run through that supply chain real quick. Yeah. So at the very top of the supply chain, we have the manufacturer like Pfizer. Pfizer manufactures the drug and then sells it to a wholesaler like McKesson.

And McKesson then wholesales it out to all the pharmacies and end users, pharmaceutical end users in the country, like the Walgreens and CVSs of the world. And before Walgreens and CVS can get that medication in the hands of the patient, the patient typically goes through their insurance. And so it's got to go through the insurance carrier. And then the insurance carrier has to go through the PBM, the Pharmacy Benefits Manager, before that medication can get in the hands of the patients. That's five people in that chain.

And of those five people, four of them are unnecessary middlemen. As long as you're the manufacturer, you're going directly to every single pharmaceutical end user, then you've just cut out four fifths of the cost of the system. And not only that, but you've mentioned it yourself. The medications aren't that expensive. If you're looking at container closures,

let's pretend this is a vial. You've got your glass vial. You've got the stopper, the aluminum cap. And you've got some active ingredient inside. If you look at a billion materials, that's typically $1 to $2. Glass is not that expensive. A little2. Glass is not that expensive. Rubber, a little piece of rubber is not that expensive. Water or oil inside of a little bit of testosterone,

not that expensive. That is what the cost is. And of course, then there's labor and over, but I'm just talking about the cogs, the cost of materials. Yeah. So what we have in this country is we have a pharmaceutical system that is able to charge whatever they want. So pharmaceutical manufacturers have lobbied so well over the past several decades that they can bring a product to market and charge whatever price they want, increase the prices whenever they want, however much they want. There are no rules around it to stop them. And we're very rare in the world when it comes to that. Many other

countries, practically most developed countries have rules around how pharmaceutical companies can price their drugs. And so for example, one drug in the United States, on average, if you look at all the drugs in the world, we pay on average about four times as much as any other developed country. And if you want to talk about specific drugs, like GLP-1s, those drugs are typically 10 times more expensive in the United States than they are in a European country. So there's a huge problem that we have in this country when it comes to drug pricing and how the system works,

the traditional pharmaceutical supply chain that involves all these middlemen. It works to be able to how the system works, the traditional pharmaceutical supply chain that involves all these middlemen. It works to be able to keep the cost of medications as high as possible for as long as possible, which at the end causes access issues. And of course, causes the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country to be due to health care costs.

And so until that system fix itself, patients and providers are seeking out compounding pharmacies like ourselves to be able to find better access, better medications at better costs in many cases. Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talking about the RTA program,

which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a culmination of everything Dan Garner and I have learned over more than two decades of working with some of the world's most elite performers, award-winning athletes, billionaires, musicians, executives, and frankly, anyone who just wanted to be at their absolute best. Arrete is not a normal coaching program.

It's not just macros and a workout plan. It's not physique transformation and pre and post pictures. Arate is something completely different. Arate is incredibly comprehensive and designed to uncover your unique molecular signature, find your performance anchors, and solve them permanently. You'll be working with not one person, but rather a full team of elite professionals, each with their own special expertise to maximize precision, accuracy, and effectiveness of your analysis and optimization plan.

Arrete isn't about treating symptoms or quick fixes. It's about unlocking your full potential and looking, feeling, and performing at your absolute best, physically and mentally, when the stakes are the highest. To learn more, visit aratelab.com. That's A-R- more, visit aretelab.com. That's a-r-e-t-e lab.com. Now, back to the show. Is this unique to you guys?

Like, are other people doing something similar? Certainly if you're able to charge low prices, there's competition in the world, I'd imagine. Or is this kind of a newer thing and the world hasn't really caught up to it yet? Oh, it's a great question. This is actually why our prices are so low because there is competition and that's how capitalism should work. When there is a monopoly, there's no competition, what always happens? Prices go up. And so the pharmaceutical industry is probably the only

industry where monopolies are still allowed. And also if you think about how long has this been going on, before the pharmaceutical industry even existed, everything was compounded. I'm sure you can remember pictures of apothecaries pouring bottles and Erlenmeyer flasks and mixing. That's how all medications were made in this country at some point. It wasn't until about 100 years ago or really 125 years ago where we saw the pharmaceutical industry start getting its beginnings. And with the industrialization of the pharmaceutical industry, we went from about 100 years ago being 75% of the market, compounding pharmacies being 75% of all medications dispensed

in the United States to now today only being 3% of all medications dispensed. And so there, but still there are 7,500 compounding pharmacies in this country. And we all have to compete with each other on quality, on service, on cost. And then we let the patient and provider decide what's in their best interests, who they think is going to serve them the best. Whereas the traditional industry, you're stuck. If you're using your

insurance, you're stuck using whatever medication that's within the PBM and your carrier's formulary. And maybe that provider's in network, maybe they're not, maybe you have to pay a huge copay, maybe you have to go see a specialist, maybe you'd like to get a pro authorization. It's just so complicated. Our industry, what we do is we say, hey, no, just pay cash. Bypass the whole insurance model. If you bypass that system and you bypass the middlemen, we can go directly to you at a fraction of the cost with a personalized medication.

And so our industry is now that patients and providers are becoming more educated on the existence of compounding due to the GLP-1 shortages, more people are starting to realize that they can get these medications delivered to their doorstep very conveniently and having them personalized. And of course, if you want to deal with personalized medications, specifically around preventative maintenance or quality of life or functional medicine, these industries are already utilizing compounding firms and have been for decades because these types of medications aren't covered by insurance in the first place. Insurance carriers aren't going to invest in you when you're likely going to switch an employer on average every four

years and when you switch your employer, you're most likely going to switch your insurance carrier as well. Yeah. The system is made to not really want to keep patients healthy. And if you want to be healthy, you kind of got to go outside the system to work with these providers that decided to only accept cash and not accept insurance. Because if you're really good at something that you do, you can't spend five minutes with a patient and take care of that patient. And the only way you can't spend five minutes with a patient and take care of that patient.

And the only way to spend more than five minutes with a patient is to typically, it's really to start your own cash practice because the insurance rates just keep plummeting for providers. And so that's what we've seen. We've seen the best providers in the country that really understand how to take care of their patients, not accept any insurance anymore, only go cash only and be able to spend hours with a patient and really get down to the root cause of what's causing their problems. And then working with a compounding pharmacy

to customize that treatment program for that individual patient. I've actually never heard that you could go cash pay when it comes to pharmaceuticals at all. And then like the physical therapy world, like so many of these places that like usually in his or in the past have taken or been inside the insurance model and then you see them break out and then that's when the practitioner actually starts to be able to make a living that that is Is enough to have a happy life like it's a it's a really hard

Practice inside the insurance model does that I'm just actually very curious about the business model of this does that open you guys up to The liability side of things being increased on is it a much riskier practice being outside of the insurance model? Not at all. There's arguably less risk because if you're dealing with insurance, you have investigators always looking at, are your claims valid? You know, doctors always have to fear potential investigations and clawbacks.

You know, with cash, there's no conflict of interest. Yeah. You're not going to, you know, you're not ripping off some insurance company. You're not ripping off the taxpayer if you're getting your insurance, if they're Medicare or Medicaid or Tricare. And so it's a much cleaner, more transparent system than what's that we have today. And in many cases can be less expensive than utilizing insurance. Because remember, when you utilize the

insurance, you're going to have to pay a copay every single time you go to see the doctor, you're going to have to pay a copay for your medication. You're going to have to be driving all over town to all these doctors and specialists and pharmacies. And what's the cost of your time worth? Whereas if you're utilizing cash, you can go online to find, type in whatever problem you think you have, and then the word telemedicine. And you can find a telemedicine provider that can see you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, diagnose you with send it and diagnose you with a potential disease state and then create a custom treatment program just for you and have that medication shipped and show up on your doorstep the very next day. In my opinion, that's a much better system,

much more efficient system and at the end of the day is much more compliant for that patient to stay on. You basically just answered my question. I'm gonna ask it anyway. Like it's cash pay, you're bypassing the insurance, but you still need the prescription. It's not just a free for all. You can't just show up with cash and just buy whatever drug you want.

You still need a doctor to say, you need XYZ prescription drug. It's not the Wild West. You're just bypassing just insurance, not doctors. Exactly. And drugs, the only difference between a drug and a supplement is that a drug is so powerful. That chemical needs to be overseen and supervised

by a licensed professional in order for the patient to take it safely and efficaciously. Whereas supplements, I mean, you can kind of take almost anything you want and you're in general gonna be safe. You're not gonna OD off taking, you know, too much vitamin C. You may have a bad side effect, but the patient's not going to die from that. So these patients,

they're very powerful. And if you really want to get the most effect from something that you ingest, it's really got to be... You've got to go to a doctor. You can't just go to your local GNC and think you're going to solve all your problems. You've got to do blood work. You've got to go to a doctor. You can't just go to your local GNC and think you're going to solve all your problems. You've got to get diagnosed. You've got to do blood work. You've got to work with a provider that understands symptomology, and then tie that to a treatment program, and then have that patient go back to the doctor over years or decades to really get dialed in,

to make sure that our internal biomarkers are exactly where they are for us to perform at peak performance. I mean, are there doctors you suggest? I mean, that you work with, you know, more on an ordinary basis, on a regular basis, I guess. We've seen an explosion in providers wanting to treat patients before they present to urgent care or the emergency room. And so we currently deal with about 40,000 different providers that send their prescriptions to us. So, I mean, there's so many. If a patient wants to find out a great provider in their area, I recommend doing one of several things. One, you can either go to Google, type in your zip code, type in whatever problem you have,

and then finding a list of providers that specialize in that. Another way is to utilize telemedicine, where you can type in whatever your treatment problem you have and then be hooked up with a provider. Another way is to use AI and simply ask the AI, hey, this is my age, this is my weight, here's my labs, if you have them, what do you think is wrong with me?

And these are my symptoms. And what provider do you think would be best suited to be able to serve me? That's a great idea. And there's also websites out there, directories, databases, where you can go to, called the Institute for Functional Medicine. And they can, you can search for providers that have been certified in how to use functional medicine and then interview them,

figure out which one's the best for you, which one's in your price point, which one has the services you want, and then start engaging there. So there's a lot of different options available to us. I never thought about AI. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, AI is changing the game. It's kind of, AI can kind of be that first provider. Well, AI

can't really write the prescription for you. It can kind of get you going in the right path of where you should be, what's going on inside of your body. So you can take a lot of the guesswork out in the beginning. Yeah. Have you guys solely kind of niche yourself into the testosterone GLP-1 space or is this any pharmaceutical that can be made you guys you're doing? It's a great question. Company pharmacies, we can make any drug that's ever been FDA approved. So, you know, it can So, it could be literally anything. As long as we change the dosage form,

the dosage strength, or the dosage combination, we can make that personalized medication for that patient. What is the supply chain on all the raw materials to be able to do that? Like that seems like an enormous problem by itself to solve. Well, so there are final dosage form manufacturers like Pfizer, but then there are active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturers that are all...

There are thousands of them registered with the FDA all over the world, mostly in China India. China India make about 80% of all the active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the world. And so we order these chemicals from the same exact places that pharma orders them. And we're overseen by the FDA, the individual state boards of pharmacy, and if it's a controlled substance, the DEA. So it's one of the most regulated industries

in the world, as it should be. Because at the end of the day, what you're doing is you're making a drug that's, in many cases, destined to be injected into a human being. And so there are lots of rules around this. And competent pharmacies like ourselves were inspected multiple times a year by multiple agencies to make sure that what we are doing are meeting the minimum standards, which are United States pharmacopeia standards, as well as, in many cases, good manufacturing practice,

the standards that are imposed upon big pharma to make sure that we can make these medications in as safe a way as possible. Regarding the supply chain and the process, you cut out all the kind of steps in the middle with the middlemen and whatnot, which means that you don't have to keep continuing to mark the price up along the way. And as a result, the final price paid by consumers is lower. Does this apply to over the counter drugs as well? Is this just prescriptions?

If we're talking about just normal stuff like ibuprofen and Tylenol and what have you that we're used to buying at any Walgreens, are there places where they're doing more or less what you're doing and therefore the price is radically cheaper? When it comes to supplements, in many cases, in almost all cases, it's a lot less expensive to be able to go to a GNC or Amazon or wherever you get your supplements than it is for a compounding pharmacy to be able to make them. Just because there are so many other supplement companies that don't have to meet the high standards that we have to meet.

We have to purchase pharmaceutical grade ingredients, which are a lot more expensive than supplement grade ingredients. And we have to work with a doctor and pharmacists and technicians to be able to get that prescription. So it's typically more expensive to make supplements. Now, company pharmacies can make supplements, but they still have to be by prescription. And so doctors that really want to get their patients the best quality supplements out there, bar none, utilize the compounding pharmacy, but there is that additional cost.

Now, you asked earlier, you know, are these medications available for any type of a patient? And we said they are, as long as they've been FDA approved. Now, our pharmacy specifically, we specialize in nine areas of treatment focused fully on functional medicine and preventative health, men's health, women's health, hormone replacement, longevity medicine, weight management, IV nutrition, dermatology, mental health, and sexual health. And if you take care of a patient in all these areas, you can really ensure that

patient lives the healthiest, happiest life that they could live. And that means kind of touching across every single one of these categories. So many patients that utilize our services, it's not just for one drug, it's for a handful, and for my case, dozens of drugs. Because I've been lucky enough to be in this industry for so long and understand how all these medications are made and the potential benefits that they could have on me. And so for me, I wouldn't be able to do what I do if it wasn't for these life-saving and life-changing medications. So my purpose in life is just be able to get these medications in the hands of as many patients like myself and keep them on these medications for the rest of our lives.

as many patients like myself and keep them on these medications for the rest of our lives. Yeah. We've kind of had the hormone replacement therapy wave with TRT and many others, and then now certainly the GLP-1 wave is still in the process. Are there any other waves on the verge of cresting right now, or what are the other most popular drugs that are really on the rise? No, we see, obviously, just like you said, GLP-1s and testosterone-related medications are very popular. It's not just testosterone, you know, it's many other anabolic esters as well. We've got nandrolone, oxandrolone, stenazolol, you know, these medications are, they have been FDA approved and there are uses for them that could benefit patients, especially patients going through muscle wasting or sarcopenia or metabolic

disorder, which practically almost all of us will go at some point in our lives as we age, unless we live the healthiest possible life possible. We're exercising three times a week, we're taking all the great, we're getting great sleep, we're eating the right things. Most people can't do that. No matter how much we try, the majority of the population will not exercise as often as they should, as is recommended, these three times a week. Nothing's ever been able to change that number throughout time. So what do we do for these patients? We try to optimize them as much as possible and give them the opportunity to take step-by-step ways to get better. And through those steps,

and these steps are other medications in many cases. So we're also seeing a lot of popularity in IV nutrition where patients can go and get infused with large amounts of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, all water soluble. So the patient can get immediate effects if they are deficient in any one of these ingredients. Another popular area that we see is, of course, we see a lot of importance in sexual health. Studies show that almost nothing makes us happier

than being sexually active, and nothing can make us unhappier than not being able to be sexually active. And so being able to help both men and women maintain libido for men, erections, these are very important for our health. Other areas that we see are starting to increase are longevity medicines.

So people that want to increase their, not just their lifespan, but their health span as well as Dr. Peter Tia says, the amount of time in life when we are healthy. And so we'll see medications like rapamycin being very popular. Also NAD plus is becoming very, is a very popular medication. NAD plus helps with mitochondrial function, which are the little machines inside of our cells that create ATP. Yeah, right. That's right. Exactly. So people are coming up because of these

great influencers like Peter Tia, Huberman, and yourself, patients are understanding that there are options available to us and their simple phone call or telemedicine visit away. Well, let me ask you a question like oxytocin. I'm like fascinated by your website now. Like, but like, I mean, does that really work? I mean, you know, like, you know, we all know, you know, what oxytocin, that's the love neurotransmitter, but like, what can people expect when they take something like an oxytocin? It's a great question. So oxytocin is part of our sexual health line. And when combined with PD-5 inhibitors

or simply sprayed intranasally, patients may expect to feel that warm, cuddly feeling. Really? That's crazy, yeah. And so this is why we compare it with PD-5. He just said people don't like working out and he's slaying in testosterone and oxytocin. That's the way. What did we do wrong? I know man.

Yeah. All the chemicals that we need to be healthy and happy are already inside of us. They're just not in the right amounts in some patients. For me, I was a kid, I had no testosterone. By replacing the testosterone, bringing it to the optimal range, the optimal area of the normal range, now I can experience the same effects as an Olympic athlete because now my testosterone levels are in the top 5% of the population instead of being in the bottom 5% of the population. of being the bottom 5% of the population. How do you know if you're low in oxytocin? Is that something that like at dinner we can just like spike a drink like that? Yeah.

Is that something you just take because it works or is that something you can actually go and get tested? You can get tests for oxytocin, but they're not very effective because oxytocin is very short-acting. It's in and out of your system very quickly. And you only get spikes of it when you are performing an activity that causes the release of it, like childbirth for one, or childbirth for one, or for men, being next to a partner. And also, we also see a lot of studies showing that patients with autism can benefit from oxytocin as it makes them more social in many cases. So there's so many uses, off-label uses,. These medications where a lot of providers just aren't aware because the pharma, all they learned was through medical school and medical school are sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. And so doctors really only learn about the on-label uses of these

medications so the big pharma can make as much money from that prescriber as soon as they get on medical school. They're not really taught compounding or many off-label uses, unfortunately. What about, well, last question, about ketamine? I know Doug and I have talked about, you know, that there are some clinics now throughout them, I guess, in America, not in North Carolina, of course, but like, tell me more about the benefits of something like ketamine. And so ketamine, traditionally, it's used as an anesthetic, typically for ORI anesthesia. And in 2019, it was approved by the FDA for the treatment of depression.

And what we saw, the only product available on the market was the FDA approved drugs, Spravato. And that drug costs over $30,000 a year for a few cents of ketamine. It's not a very expensive medication at all. And so the providers were going to compounding pharmacies to be able to get access to different dosage forms like sublingual trochees, buccal trochees, oral dyssteroid tablets, nasal sprays, and even the injection as well, because the injection went on backwater immediately when providers determined that you could administer ketamine intravenously.

And then the hospital systems, they started running out of ketamine and all these IV ketamine therapy clinics, they started losing access to these medications. So then we stepped in and we started making these medications and providing them directly to providers and patients for them to self-administer or administer their patients in office. And so ketamine, it's quite amazing. It's very effective as is indicated for the treatment of depression. It's arguably in many cases safer than using an SSRI. The side effect profile is safer. Suicide is not a side effect of ketamine, suicidal ideation. And also it's great for treatment of anxiety.

A lot of providers are using it to treat pain as well. And because it's been around since it was the 70s, I believe, it's not expensive at all. The chemical is very, very inexpensive. So patients can get ketamine therapy delivered to their doorstep for tens of dollars a month versus the FDA approved version where you have to go to a provider, or you had to go to a provider until very recently and pay $30,000 a month if your insurance didn't carry it. And if your insurance did carry it, then the insurance system would have to burden that cost.

So we're seeing providers learn that they can make different dosage forms, different strengths of ketamine and get it directly in the hands of patients under the supervision of a licensed prescriber and experience all the benefits of this wonderful molecule. That is absolutely insane. Like tens of dollars. What do you want them to cook up for you, bud? I'm going to order all kinds of things, man. Like I want one of everything on this website. I just have one of everything. But absolutely. Practically all the medications that we make are for quality of life. They improve quality of life. And so if there's something that you

qualify for, I say, get your doctor, talk to your doctor, get them to write a prescription, send it in and experience the benefits. As I mentioned, we have this shame in this country where we say, oh, I don't want to be on drugs. I should take as few drugs as possible. Nothing could be further from the truth. If that medication can benefit us, we should want to be on that drug. If the human organism is to perform at its maximum potential, we need the chemicals for our organs to be able to run at maximum potential. That's all performance is. If you're low on testosterone,

you can work out all day long. You're not going to gain as much muscle as somebody that has normal testosterone levels. That's true for pretty much any chemical. If you have a low thyroid, you're not going to have as much energy as someone that has a normal thyroid. If you have low, name your hormone, name your chemical,

you're not going to feel one. That's why we feel off. It's because something inside of our bodies are off. There's a chemical inside our body that isn't produced in the right way, the right amount to make our body and mind respond as it should. The ketamine thing is interesting. A good friend of mine had his son broke his arm in a mountain biking accident. And when they went to go set his arm, they put him under with ketamine versus whatever the normal,

whatever the normal drug is that they do that. And he overheard the doctor saying, well, he overheard the ketamine. He was like, hold on a second, let's talk about that. What are we doing here? And the doctor said that it's a significant, especially with kids. Cause when people come out of that state,

they're usually like groggy and kind of angry and feel awful. And he was like, wait till you see your kid when it comes out of the ketamine state. And he showed up after breaking his arm. He didn't feel anything when they were resetting it and came out to having to sedate specifically kids, but also adults in this process because it's just a much smoother process coming out, which I had never even heard before. That one like really caught my attention. I was like, man, we need to start thinking outside the box because most people wouldn't think of ketamine and like doctors using it on their kids. most people wouldn't think of ketamine and like doctors using it on their kids. Yeah, for very short term procedures.

Yeah. Ketamine may be a viable option. And it's mentioned not giving the patient opioid, you're not, you know, because ketamine is a natural antidepressant, when they come out of their K-hole, they feel great. Yeah. They feel great for it. And this is what patients are doing with these ketamine clinics. They're going to IV ketamine clinics and getting

intravenous ketamine. And they do it typically every couple of weeks for patients with a depression. And instead of having to take an SSRI which has terrible side effects, sexual dysfunction, suicidal ideation, and in many cases, just not that effective, or as they go get ketamine therapy, I mean, they feel great for that two weeks. And they don't have to worry about these terrible side effects, as well as being on something that really is not that effective. So yeah, we're seeing, ketamine is another area of treatment where we're seeing in our mental health category that we're seeing explode as well. Yeah. Is there anything kind of forward looking here of real interest in the pharmaceutical space of like GLP-1s have been around for a long time, but it feels

like that hockey stick has just hit and everyone's on them. Testosterone is another one where it was like, when Travis Mash was scottin' a thousand plus pounds, only the real meatheads knew that testosterone was good for you. And now I feel like there's like an online clinic for everyone to get their testosterone. Are there new waves of this coming and things that may not be on kind of like the mainstream conversation? You know, I think just like Jill P1s, they showed up and when they got FDA approved for the treatment of obesity in 2022, you know, they exploded in popularity. But when we're looking at the entirety of the functional medicine space,

pretty much what is out today is more or less what we need to keep patients healthy. Why do we say that? Well, what we need to keep patients healthy is just replacing the biomarkers we have inside of our bodies, getting them in the optimal range. And those chemicals have been around for generations. Testosterone, how long has it been around for? It's been around for over 100 years. Estrogen, prognanolone, vitamins, nutrients, minerals, we don't need to create these synthetic drugs to make a patient feel better.

In many cases, synthetic drugs can have detrimental side effects. But natural chemicals, we typically experience less side effects if they're given within the normal range and can be very beneficial. It's really what we're doing is we're solving the root cause. The functional medicine industry is going and saying, let's identify what is causing your problem and let's go from there. Instead of adding a synthetic chemical to cover up the problem, which then creates more problems, which then you have to add more synthetic chemicals. And now you've got the patient on a dozen medications that never really solved that

patient's root cause problem. So that's, you know, I think we already have all the tools or many of the tools we need. And yeah, for patients like for GLP-1s, that's a wonderful because obesity just causes so many disease states. And over half the US population qualifies for GLP-1 therapy because of all the new indications. It's not just for diabetes and weight management. It's for COPD, depression, addiction. There are studies showing that it could help with cardiovascular disease. And so new indications keep popping up every single day, which means more and more patients qualify for this medication, which means they have to get it from somewhere because only about 12% of the population today can afford GLP-1 therapy through the traditional manufacturers. Whereas through compounding pharmacies, that number changes to about 80% of the population

could afford it. So there's a huge access gap that patients and providers are deciding not just to receive better outcomes by prescribing a personalized compound medications because that, but also because that patient just wouldn't be able to get it any other way. Yeah. You know, playing off of the, the ketamine conversation, given that psychedelics have now been, or are continuing rather to be more and more accepted by society and there's kind of layers of legality that are slowly changing over time.

You can, you can go do like a mushroom retreat, that type of thing. Like in Colorado these days, as an example. On the pharmaceutical side of it, what's the conversation like amongst pharmaceutical companies as far as just kind of a, either assisting with that wave or even on the other side, or like kind of pushing it down, like they don't want the competition, if that's the right word. What's like the psychedelic conversation amongst the pharmaceutical industry?

You know, because it takes so long and costs so much to bring a molecule to market, get it FD approved, you know, there's a lot of talk in the pharmaceutical industry. We see new job applications being filed for psilocybin, LSD, DMT, IgboGain. Actually, right here in Texas, last week, they just passed a bill that dedicates $50 million to research on IgboGain and a study of where it showed that Ig Ibogaine may be able to help patients with addiction. And so there's a lot of talk. And as you mentioned, the only way patients can really get access to these types of therapies are through unregulated, many unregulated channels. Still, I mean, patients are going to go where they need to go. And I think it's better to put patients into a regulated market. And so when these states allow people

to be able to make, get access to these medications, it's through a regulated source. I think it's better for patients in the end. So just like we did with ketamine, once it got approved and into the type of psychedelic therapy, we saw providers and patients just go to regulated industries like our own to get access under the supervision

of a licensed individual so we can make sure that that patient is protected and safe. And so we're very hopeful that when MDMA gets approved, psilocybin and many of these other wonderful chemicals, that compounding pharmacies will work with providers to be able to create the dosage form that's just right for that patient as psychedelics are vastly all dose dependent. And that one size fit pill is not going to be for everybody in the country. Yeah.

Let's go down that road a little bit. So I know Doblin was like fucking hot on getting MDMA legalized by 2020 and it's been kind of many layers, many layers removed there where it hasn't actually happened yet. But do you know the state of that at this point? Is that being pushed through? This may or may not actually be in your wheelhouse here, but I'd love to hear. You know, last time I was at the Psychedelic Sciences Conference a couple of years ago when they thought it was going to get approved, we were very hopeful.

But as we all know, the FDA wanted more data. And so they're cleaning up their data and hopefully Lycos Pharmaceuticals, which now owns the patent to MDMA, will be able to get that across the finish line. But we'll see. Hopefully, I'm hopeful it'll get done in the next year or two.

Colorado's already there. We just gotta follow their model. Colorado's already legalized MDMA? Oh, not MDMA, Sorry. psilocybin. Yeah, but there's still no regulated source because because it's schedule one federally, no pharmacy in the country can legally make it. Otherwise the DEA will kick open our doors and shut us down. So I hope hopefully this administration, I know this administration open our doors and shut us down. So I hope hopefully this administration, I know this administration under RFK Jr. is looking at psychedelic therapy and hopefully be able

to get access to patients and accelerate the approval process. With as long as it's taken to nationally change cannabis, I won't be holding my breath. It feels like, it feels like even living in Southern California for a decade, it was like, it's gonna happen this year. And then this year, and then this year. And now I'm almost at the point where I'm like, I don't even know if I want it to be. It was like the first time in my life where I was like,

why do we need it on the corner? Everybody can get it anyways, or go to you. Where like, there's like a real professional doing it that has access to kind access to really be able to know what's going on. And that stuff's terrifying these days. It's so intense. All of the stuff that you buy in a store, you can take cannabis to the nth degree now in the intensity of what they're selling. Yeah. Well, with all these other medications that can't be sold at your local corner store, patients are going out to unregulated markets. They're going outside the country. And who

knows where that person that's been ministering that is getting that medication from. I've heard horror stories from friends that they're under a psychedelic state and they're getting taken advantage of. They're being asked to invest all their money into this company that this person is trying to set up. And that's what happens when we take these medications and put them on the ban list. Patients go out one way or another and find a source. And unfortunately, in many times, because that source is unregulated, there's no referee to oversee the administration of that medication to the patient. And so that, so it's pretty much buyer aware, unfortunately.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone has to go to Mexico or Peru or Columbia or somewhere and just kind of hope you're getting what you think you're getting. Hey, that's scary. Much more than anything. And now you've got this guy trying to shake you down for your entire life savings. And it's not a

it's not a good system. I think we can build a much better system in this country. We just need the courage and the data to be able to show that these medications can be safe and efficacious. Yeah. Sean, this has been fantastic, man. I really enjoyed this. I have now an elementary understanding of how the pharmaceutical world works, and I think you've got a cool thing going.

So where can people find you? Websites, social media, all the things. Yeah, just type in empowerpharmacy.com. You can visit our website there. And we're on X, Twitter, LinkedIn, all the social media platforms, search Empower Pharmacy. And if you want to check out our drug catalog, just like Travis was doing earlier.

I'm already, I'm so fascinated. If you want to know what drugs they have, just text Travis. I'm going to be up all night long. Yeah. What do you want to know at this point? Like I'm fascinated. You got oxytocin, the high dose, the highest dose.

Honestly, like, yeah, it's none of this is like all this stuff is just going to like improve life. It's like nothing is like a negative. I'm like, I gotta get you some testosterone, Travis. You got sarcopenia, buddy. I saw I saw your back squats down to five fifty. I know. No, testosterone is not what I'm excited about. All the other cool stuff.

All right. Oxytocin coming your way, buddy. Birthday present. I'll figure it out. Where can the people find you, bud? I go to Mashlead.com. You want to read my articles? Go to Jim Ray dot com in the blog section. There you go. Doug Larson.

You bet. I'm on Instagram. Douglas C. Larson. Sean, appreciate you, brother. Had fun talking about all this and what you got back on the show here in a year. And we'll do around too. Absolutely.

Looking forward to it. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. And we are barbell shrugged at barbell underscore shrugged. Make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis.

And you can access that free report over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.