Fda Drug Database Scraper

Overview

The FDA Drug Database Scraper extracts comprehensive drug information from the DailyMed database, which is maintained by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and contains FDA-approved drug labeling. This actor provides structured data about prescription and over-the-counter medications, including drug names, generic names, dosage forms, manufacturers, NDC codes, indications, warnings, and active ingredients.

Features

• Search for drugs by name, generic name, or keyword across the DailyMed database
• Extract detailed drug label information including NDC codes and active ingredients
• Retrieve manufacturer details and dosage form information
• Access indication and warning sections from official FDA drug labels
• Automatic fallback to DailyMed SPL API when web scraping yields no results
• Works with empty input using default search terms (ibuprofen, metformin)
• Export results in JSON, CSV, Excel, or other formats via Apify datasets

Input Configuration

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
searchTerms	array	Drug names or keywords to search	["ibuprofen", "metformin"]
maxResults	integer	Maximum results per search term	100

Output Format

Each result contains the following fields:

• drugName - Official drug name from DailyMed
• genericName - Generic name of the drug
• dosageForm - Form of the drug (tablet, capsule, etc.)
• manufacturer - Drug manufacturer or labeler
• ndcCodes - National Drug Code identifiers
• indications - Medical conditions the drug treats
• warnings - Safety warnings from the drug label
• activeIngredients - Active pharmaceutical ingredients
• url - Direct link to the DailyMed drug page
• scrapedAt - ISO timestamp of when the data was collected

Use Cases

This scraper is ideal for pharmaceutical researchers, healthcare data analysts, pharmacovigilance teams, and developers building drug information applications. Common use cases include building drug reference databases, monitoring drug label changes, researching active ingredients across manufacturers, and aggregating NDC code information for pharmacy management systems.

Pricing

This actor uses a pay-per-event pricing model. You are charged $0.75 per 1,000 results delivered. There are no additional platform fees beyond the compute costs.

Limitations

• DailyMed may rate-limit requests; the actor uses built-in concurrency controls to respect server limits
• Some drug labels may have incomplete structured data depending on how the manufacturer submitted the label
• NDC codes and warning sections may vary in format across different drug labels
• Maximum memory allocation is 4096 MB; increase memory for very large searches

For more information about running actors on the Apify platform, visit the Apify documentation.