APIs

APIs

RxNorm API

getDrugs

Information returned
Drugs related to a specified name
Service domain
https://rxnav.nlm.nih.gov
HTTP request
GET  /REST/drugs.xml?name=value&expand=fields

Description

Get the drug products associated with a specified name. The name can be an ingredient, brand name, clinical dose form, branded dose form, clinical drug component, or branded drug component. The following table shows examples of input and the types of drug products returned. See default paths for the paths traveled to get concepts for each term type.

Input type (TTY)ExampleOutput types
ingredient (IN)azithromycinclinical drug (SCD), clinical pack (GPCK), branded drug (SBD), branded pack (BPCK)
precise ingredient (PIN)morphine sulfateclinical drug (SCD), clinical pack (GPCK), branded drug (SBD), branded pack (BPCK)
multiple ingredient (MIN)amlodipine / atorvastatinclinical drug (SCD), clinical pack (GPCK), branded drug (SBD), branded pack (BPCK)
clinical drug component (SCDC)azithromycin 250 mgclinical drug (SCD), clinical pack (GPCK)
clinical drug form (SCDF)azithromycin oral tabletclinical drug (SCD), clinical pack (GPCK)
clinical dose form group (SCDG)azithromycin pillclinical drug (SCD), clinical pack (GPCK)
brand name (BN)Lipitorbranded drug (SBD), branded pack (BPCK)
branded drug component (SBDC)azithromycin 250 mg [Zithromax]branded drug (SBD), branded pack (BPCK)
branded drug form (SBDF)azithromycin oral tablet [Zithromax]branded drug (SBD), branded pack (BPCK)
branded dose form group (SBDG)Zithromax pillbranded drug (SBD), branded pack (BPCK)

Scope

Active: concepts in the current RxNorm data set that have an atom with SAB=RXNORM and SUPPRESS=N

Parameters

ParameterLocationUseDescriptionDefault
formatPathOptional

Notation for results

One of:
.xml
Get results in XML
.json
Get results in JSON
.xml
nameQueryRequiredName of ingredient, brand, clinical dose form, branded dose form, clinical drug component, or branded drug component
expandQueryOptionalAdditional result fields to retrieve
One or more of:
psn
Prescribable Name (PSN)

(Space-separated list.)

Note that HTTP requires that query parameters be "URL encoded". For instance, a "space-separated list" will, in practice, usually appear to use either a plus sign (+) or %20 as the separator. For full information on URL encoding, please refer to IETF RFC 3986, "Uniform Resource Identifier".

Output structure

Results are available as either XML or JSON.

  • The XML result has the root element rxnormdata. It is described in the XML Schema for the RxNorm API; the relevant element structure is summarized below. Elements that would be empty might be left out.

  • The JSON result is an object {...}, analogous to the content of the XML rxnormdata. Fields that might occur multiple times in the XML are expressed as an array. Fields that would be empty might be null or left out. Numbers are expressed as strings.

Both XML and JSON results follow the same outline:

rxnormdata
Root element in XML, or anonymous object in JSON
drugGroup
name
(Always empty)
conceptGroup (array)
Related concepts having a certain TTY
tty
Term type of the concepts in this group
conceptProperties (array)
Related concept
rxcui
RxNorm identifier
name
RxNorm concept name
synonym
Short or "Tallman" RxNorm synonym
tty
Term type
language
LAT attribute from RxNorm
suppress
SUPPRESS field from RxNorm
umlscui
(Always empty)
psn
Prescribable Name

Example: Drugs with "cymbalta"

XML: https://rxnav.nlm.nih.gov/REST/drugs?name=cymbalta

JSON: https://rxnav.nlm.nih.gov/REST/drugs.json?name=cymbalta

An XML result is shown below.

<rxnormdata>
    <drugGroup>
        ...
        <conceptGroup>
            <tty>BPCK</tty>
        </conceptGroup>
        <conceptGroup>
            <tty>SBD</tty>
            <conceptProperties>
                <rxcui>596928</rxcui>
                <name>duloxetine 20 MG Delayed Release Oral Capsule [Cymbalta]</name>
                <synonym>Cymbalta 20 MG Delayed Release Oral Capsule</synonym>
                <tty>SBD</tty>
                <language>ENG</language>
                <suppress>N</suppress>
                <umlscui/>
            </conceptProperties>
            <conceptProperties>
                <rxcui>596932</rxcui>
                <name>duloxetine 30 MG Delayed Release Oral Capsule [Cymbalta]</name>
                <synonym>Cymbalta 30 MG Delayed Release Oral Capsule</synonym>
                <tty>SBD</tty>
                <language>ENG</language>
                <suppress>N</suppress>
                <umlscui/>
            </conceptProperties>
            <conceptProperties>
                <rxcui>615186</rxcui>
                <name>duloxetine 60 MG Delayed Release Oral Capsule [Cymbalta]</name>
                <synonym>Cymbalta 60 MG (as duloxetine HCl 67.3 MG) Delayed Release Oral Capsule</synonym>
                <tty>SBD</tty>
                <language>ENG</language>
                <suppress>N</suppress>
                <umlscui/>
            </conceptProperties>
        </conceptGroup>
    </drugGroup>
</rxnormdata>