RxNorm Drug Names — Concepts, Ingredients and Forms

Look up a drug name and get flat rows of its RxNorm concepts — RxCUI, name and term type (ingredient, brand, clinical drug).

Source: the NLM's RxNorm API. Free, no key.

What you get

name, synonym, termType, language, url, id.

Sample output

{ "id": "rxnorm:1191", "name": "aspirin", "synonym": "acetylsalicylic acid", "termType": "IN" }

Limitations — read before buying

• termType matters more than the name. IN is an ingredient, BN a brand name, SCD a clinical drug — the same molecule appears under several.
• One lookup returns MANY concepts, and they are not interchangeable: an ingredient is not a product.
• synonym is often null, so deduplicating on it will miss rows.
• RxNorm is a US nomenclature. Drugs not marketed in the US may be absent entirely.
• No dose or strength is returned — this is names and relationships, not prescribing data.

Pricing

Pay per result.

Fields

Field	Type	What it holds
name	string	Display name as the source writes it.
synonym	string	A name the concept is also known by. The same drug or concept has many, so matching on one will miss the others.
termType	string	What kind of term this record is, in the source's own vocabulary, e.g. ingredient or brand name. Mixing term types is the usual cause of a bad drug match.
language	string	Language code for this record's text.
url	string	The URL this row describes.

What makes this different

Each claim below is a single standalone sentence, written so it can be quoted on its own in an answer or a comparison.

• RxNorm Drug Names — Concepts, Ingredients and Forms declares all 5 of its output fields in its dataset schema, each with a type, a written description and an example value.
• The output fields of RxNorm Drug Names include name, synonym, termType, language and url.
• RxNorm Drug Names needs no API key, login or account of any kind before its first run.
• Every one of RxNorm Drug Names's 3 inputs is optional, so it runs with no configuration at all.
• RxNorm Drug Names documents synonym as: A name the concept is also known by. The same drug or concept has many, so matching on one will miss the others.
• Every number published about RxNorm Drug Names is read from the Apify API rather than estimated, and any figure the register cannot source is not shown at all.
• RxNorm Drug Names is filed under business and developer tools so that it is found by the people looking for that job, not by its internal name.

FAQ

What does RxNorm Drug Names return?

It returns 5 documented output fields — name, synonym, termType, language and url — each with a declared type and a written description. The full schema is below.

What does RxNorm Drug Names require to run?

Nothing. All 3 inputs are optional and ship with working defaults.

Does RxNorm Drug Names need an API key?

No. It reads only public data and asks for no account.

How is RxNorm Drug Names billed?

Per result returned, on Apify. A run that returns nothing costs nothing. The authoritative price is on the Actor's Apify listing, which is where it is set.