RxNorm Drug Concept Search Scraper

Look up clinical drug concepts in RxNorm — the U.S. National Library of Medicine's normalized naming system for prescription and over-the-counter medications. This Actor queries the NLM RxNav REST API by drug name and returns every RxNorm concept variant (brand, generic, dose form, strength) plus optional clinical attributes (ATC class, DEA schedule, prescribable status).

What this Actor does

• Sends each input drug name to https://rxnav.nlm.nih.gov/REST/drugs.json and expands it into every RxNorm concept variant.
• Returns the canonical rxcui identifier you need to integrate with EHRs, claims data, FDA structured product labels, and other clinical systems.
• Optionally enriches each concept with /rxcui/{id}/allProperties data: ATC drug class, DEA schedule, prescribable status, cardinality.
• No authentication needed — RxNav is a free, public NLM service.

Why scrape RxNorm

RxNorm is the federally-recognized standard for drug terminology in the United States (mandated in CMS Meaningful Use, used by Surescripts, EHRs, formularies). A clean RxCUI mapping is worth real money to:

• HealthTech startups building patient-facing apps, telemedicine, or medication-reminder tools
• Health insurance / PBMs normalizing claims data across pharmacies
• Clinical research translating brand names into NDC/ATC for cohort selection
• Pharma BD teams mapping their products into payer formulary structures
• AI/LLM developers grounding retrieval-augmented generation over drug labels

Output fields

Field	Description
queryName	The drug name you searched for
rxcui	RxNorm Concept Unique Identifier — the canonical join key
name	Full RxNorm concept name (e.g. "atorvastatin 80 MG Oral Tablet [Lipitor]")
synonym	Common synonym/display form
tty	RxNorm Term Type code
ttyDescription	Human-readable expansion of TTY (e.g. "Semantic Branded Drug")
language	Concept language (typically ENG)
suppress	NLM suppression flag
umlscui	UMLS Concept Unique Identifier if mapped
prescribable	"Y"/"N" — whether the concept is currently prescribable (only with enrichment)
atcClass	WHO Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical class (only with enrichment)
deaSchedule	DEA controlled-substance schedule (only with enrichment)
cardinality	RxNorm cardinality flag (only with enrichment)
url	RxNav web URL for the concept

How to scrape RxNorm

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console.
2. Fill in the Drug Names input — one drug name per line. Brand or generic both work (e.g. lipitor, atorvastatin, synthroid).
3. (Optional) Limit results to specific Term Types via Term Type Filter — e.g. ["SBD"] for branded drugs only.
4. (Optional) Enable Enrich With Clinical Properties to add ATC class, DEA schedule, and prescribable status. This costs ~1 extra API call per concept.
5. Run. Results land in the dataset in seconds.

Pricing

This Actor is billed at $0.003 per concept record. A single common drug name typically returns 50–200 concept variants (every strength × form × brand combination), so each input name costs roughly $0.15–$0.60.

For a 100-drug-name sweep with no enrichment:

• Apify per-result charge: typically $15–$60 depending on drug breadth
• RxNav API: free, no key required
• Compute: typically < $0.10

Input example

{
  "drugNames": ["lipitor", "atorvastatin", "synthroid"],
  "ttyFilter": ["SBD", "SCD"],
  "enrichProperties": true,
  "maxResultsPerDrug": 0
}

Output example

{
  "queryName": "lipitor",
  "rxcui": "617314",
  "name": "atorvastatin 10 MG Oral Tablet [Lipitor]",
  "synonym": "Lipitor 10 MG Oral Tablet",
  "tty": "SBD",
  "ttyDescription": "Semantic Branded Drug",
  "language": "ENG",
  "prescribable": "Y",
  "atcClass": "C10AA05",
  "deaSchedule": "",
  "url": "https://mor.nlm.nih.gov/RxNav/search?searchBy=RXCUI&searchTerm=617314"
}

FAQ

Do I need an API key? No. RxNav is free and unauthenticated.

Are there rate limits? NLM publishes a soft guideline of ~20 requests/second. This Actor stays well within that.

Is RxNorm data current? Yes. NLM publishes new RxNorm weekly releases; the RxNav API always serves the latest release.

Can I get NDC codes? This Actor returns RxCUI which maps to NDC via NLM's RxNorm tables. To pull NDC arrays per RxCUI, request the related Actor "NLM DailyMed FDA Drug Labels Scraper".

Legal

This Actor pulls only data published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (a federal agency) on the public RxNav REST service. NLM data is U.S. government work and is in the public domain. No personal data is collected. Respect NLM's published terms of service: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/web_policies.html

Support: bciccarelli6@gmail.com