A practical provider's guide to helping fertility patients find Gonal-F in stock in 2026. Five actionable steps, alternative protocols, and workflow tips.
As a fertility provider, you already know the frustration: you've carefully designed a stimulation protocol, your patient is ready to start — and then the pharmacy calls to say Gonal-F isn't available. For time-sensitive IVF and IUI cycles, medication access delays can derail carefully planned treatment timelines.
This guide provides actionable steps your practice can take to help patients find Gonal-F (follitropin alfa) in stock, minimize treatment disruptions, and build a more resilient medication sourcing workflow.
Gonal-F supply in 2026 remains intermittently constrained. As the sole follitropin alfa product on the US market — with no FDA-approved biosimilar — Gonal-F availability is entirely dependent on EMD Serono's manufacturing and distribution pipeline.
Key patterns:
For a broader overview of the supply situation, see our provider briefing on the Gonal-F shortage.
Understanding why patients have difficulty can help you address the problem proactively:
Build a standard workflow where Gonal-F prescriptions are sent as soon as the protocol is finalized — ideally 10-14 days before anticipated cycle start. This gives patients a meaningful window to source their medication, explore alternatives if needed, and arrange delivery from mail-order specialty pharmacies.
Consider adding a "medication sourcing check" to your pre-cycle checklist, where a nurse or coordinator confirms the patient has secured their medications before you commit to a start date.
Establish standing relationships with 2-3 specialty fertility pharmacies that maintain reliable Gonal-F inventory. Recommended pharmacy types:
Provide patients with a printed or digital list of your preferred pharmacies at the time of protocol discussion. Having this information early prevents the default-to-retail pattern.
Medfinder for Providers allows your staff to check Gonal-F availability across pharmacies in real time. Instead of calling pharmacies one by one, you can identify which locations have stock and direct patients accordingly.
Consider integrating Medfinder into your pharmacy coordination workflow. When a patient reports difficulty sourcing Gonal-F, your coordinator can check availability in minutes and redirect the prescription.
Where clinically appropriate, design protocols that allow substitution between Gonal-F and Follistim AQ (follitropin beta). Key considerations:
See our full overview of Gonal-F alternatives for patient-facing information you can share.
Cost barriers compound availability problems. When a patient finds Gonal-F in stock at an out-of-network specialty pharmacy, the cash price can be prohibitive. Proactive financial counseling helps:
Share our patient guide: How to Save Money on Gonal-F.
When Gonal-F is unavailable, these are the primary alternatives for stimulation protocols:
Medication access shouldn't be the thing that derails a fertility treatment cycle. By building early prescribing, specialty pharmacy relationships, real-time availability tools, and protocol flexibility into your practice workflow, you can dramatically reduce the frequency of Gonal-F sourcing crises.
Visit Medfinder for Providers to start checking real-time Gonal-F availability, and share our patient resources to help your patients navigate the process on their end:
You focus on staying healthy. We'll handle the rest.
Try Medfinder Concierge FreeMedfinder's mission is to ensure every patient gets access to the medications they need. We believe this begins with trustworthy information. Our core values guide everything we do, including the standards that shape the accuracy, transparency, and quality of our content. We’re committed to delivering information that’s evidence-based, regularly updated, and easy to understand. For more details on our editorial process, see here.
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