GLP-1 Pharmacy Price and Availability Tracker

GLP-1 prices vary 5-10x across pharmacies. Tracking it by hand is a Tuesday-morning ritual nobody wants to maintain.

This actor provides a normalized GLP-1 pharmacy data feed for cost transparency platforms, telehealth operations teams, employer benefit analysts, and pharmacy benchmark workflows. It collects public pricing and availability signals for GLP-1 products, normalizes each result into a stable JSON schema, and adds FDA shortage status from openFDA.

The v1 source mix is intentionally conservative. Cost Plus Drugs is checked first because it exposes a public JSON formulary API with NDC and unit price fields. NovoCare Pharmacy public pages are used for semaglutide pharmacy pricing when Cost Plus does not list a matching product. The actor does not collect compounded GLP-1 offers and does not frame results as consumer treatment guidance.

Quick Start

Run as a Standby API:

$curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/george.the.developer~glp1-pharmacy-availability-tracker/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN"

Query current semaglutide prices:

$curl "https://glp1-pharmacy-availability-tracker.apify.actor/prices?drug=semaglutide&limit=5"

Query FDA shortage status:

$curl "https://glp1-pharmacy-availability-tracker.apify.actor/shortage?drug=semaglutide"

Endpoints

Endpoint	Purpose	Billing
GET /	Service info and supported routes	none
GET /health	Health response for platform probes	none
`GET /prices?drug=<name	NDC>&pharmacy=<>&limit=	Current normalized price rows
GET /shortage?drug=<name>	openFDA shortage status and history	pharmacy-price x 1
GET /alerts?since=<ISO>&drug=<>&type=<>	Price, stock, or shortage deltas	availability-alert per alert
GET /watchlist?drugs=<list>&max_price=<>	Rows matching a price ceiling	pharmacy-price per row

Healthcheck values such as test, ping, example.com, and https://apify.com short circuit to a mock response. Mock responses use the production shape: { ok, mocked, input, prices, alerts }.

Price Row Schema

Field	Type	Notes
row_id	string	Hash of drug, pharmacy, NDC or dosage, and check time
drug_name	string	Generic name such as semaglutide
brand_name	string or null	Brand name such as Ozempic
ndc	string or null	National Drug Code when the source publishes it
dosage	string	Strength or dose group
package_size	string	Pens, vials, count, or package text
pharmacy_name	string	Source pharmacy or pharmacy program
pharmacy_type	string	retail-chain, mail-order, specialty, or cost-plus
list_price_usd	number	Published list or program price
cash_price_usd	number or null	Cash price when available
in_stock	boolean or null	Source level availability signal
shortage_status	string or null	no-shortage, on-shortage-list, or resolved
shortage_reason	string or null	openFDA reason or related note
source_url	string	Public source URL
checked_at	ISO8601	Fetch timestamp

Alert Schema

Field	Type	Notes
alert_id	string	Hash of drug, pharmacy, alert type, and observed time
drug_name	string	Generic name
brand_name	string or null	Brand name
pharmacy_name	string	Pharmacy or program
alert_type	string	price-drop, price-rise, restock, stockout, shortage-listed, or shortage-resolved
previous_value	number, string, or null	Prior state
current_value	number or string	Current state
delta_percent	number or null	Price change percentage
observed_at	ISO8601	Detection time
source_url	string	Public source URL

Pipeline

flowchart LR
  A[Input drug or NDC] --> B[Cost Plus API]
  A --> C[NovoCare pharmacy pages]
  A --> D[openFDA shortage API]
  B --> E[Normalize price rows]
  C --> E
  D --> E
  E --> F[Optional alert detection]
  F --> G[Dataset and API response]

Pricing

Event	Price	When charged
actor-start	$0.50	Once per paid Standby request or batch run
pharmacy-price	$0.05	Per normalized pharmacy and drug price row returned
availability-alert	$0.25	Per restock, price drop, or shortage state change alert returned

GoodRx Compared With This Actor

GoodRx is a consumer UI. It is useful for one off pharmacy shopping, but it is not designed as a normalized API feed for builders. This actor is the API layer for teams that need machine readable GLP-1 pharmacy data in their own product, dashboard, or reporting pipeline.

Use Cases

Cost transparency platform integrations can use the feed to populate drug price comparison surfaces. Telehealth operations teams can monitor approved pharmacy program prices and shortage status. Employer benefit teams can create GLP-1 access reports by drug and source. Pharmacy benefit manager analysts can benchmark public program pricing against internal plan data.

FAQ

Which drugs are covered?
The config starts with semaglutide, tirzepatide, and liraglutide brands: Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, and Saxenda.

How often is the data refreshed?
Each API request fetches current public source data. Batch users can schedule recurring runs in Apify.

How current is FDA shortage data?
The shortage layer comes from openFDA and includes the API metadata date in each response. FDA updates can lag real pharmacy inventory.

What happens if a source blocks a request?
The actor returns a clear error for that request. It does not silently swallow source failures.

Is this FDA compliance advice?
No. This is a public data feed. It does not provide medical, legal, regulatory, or prescribing advice.

How do I request a refund?
Open an Apify issue with the run ID and the endpoint used. Refunds are reviewed when source failures or actor errors caused unusable output.

Questions or enterprise data requests: contact George Kioko on Apify at george.the.developer.