FDA Acronyms & Abbreviations Database

Look up any FDA acronym or abbreviation in seconds, or download the complete official FDA / CDER acronyms list — 3,800+ entries — as JSON, CSV or Excel. Free, no API key, no scraping of fda.gov at run time: the actor ships with a cleaned copy of the FDA's own acronyms database and answers instantly.

What is the FDA Acronyms & Abbreviations Database?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) maintains a public acronyms and abbreviations database — the reference for the terms you meet in FDA guidance documents, drug applications, inspection reports and regulatory correspondence: ANDA, NDA, BLA, IND, 510(k), GRAS, CGMP, OTC, REMS, PDUFA, CDRH, CBER, ORA and thousands more.

This Apify actor turns that database into a fast lookup and export tool for regulatory affairs, quality, pharmacovigilance, medical writing, legal and data teams:

• 🔎 Look up a list of FDA acronyms — case-insensitive, punctuation and spaces ignored (anda, ANDA and A.N.D.A. all match) — and get the official definition for each.
• 🔍 Search acronyms and definitions by keyword, e.g. biologic, inspection, labeling, clinical.
• 📦 Export the whole FDA acronyms list — run with an empty input and download everything as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML.
• 🤖 Use it from code, no-code tools or AI agents — Apify API, Make, Zapier, n8n, or as a tool through Apify's MCP server.

What data do you get?

Field	Description
acronym	The acronym or abbreviation exactly as FDA lists it
definition	FDA's official expansion or definition, in FDA's own wording. About 250 acronyms have several meanings (e.g. IND, NDA); you get one row per meaning
found	true when the acronym exists in the FDA database; false rows keep batch lookups aligned with your input
matchedBy	acronym (exact lookup), search (text search) or all (full export)
query	The acronym or search text that produced the row
sourceUrl	Link to the FDA database the data comes from
dataVersion	Date the bundled copy was taken from FDA

How to look up FDA acronyms — step by step

1. Click Try for free. An Apify account takes a minute, and the free plan is more than enough for this actor.
2. Paste your acronyms into Acronyms to look up (one per line), or type a word into Search text, or leave both empty to export the full list.
3. Click Start. Results appear in the Dataset tab within a couple of seconds.
4. Download them as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, or fetch them through the API — every run also stores fda-acronyms.csv (the complete list) in its key-value store.

Is the FDA acronyms database free?

Yes. This actor has no usage fee. A run only consumes Apify platform credit, and a lookup takes about a second at 256 MB of memory, so thousands of lookups fit comfortably in Apify's free monthly allowance. There is no API key to obtain and nothing to install.

Input examples

Look up several acronyms at once:

{
  "acronyms": ["ANDA", "BLA", "CDER", "GRAS", "PDUFA"]
}

Search definitions for a keyword and cap the output:

{
  "search": "biologic",
  "limit": 50
}

Export the complete database:

{}

Output example

[
  {
    "acronym": "ANDA",
    "definition": "abbreviated new drug application",
    "found": true,
    "matchedBy": "acronym",
    "query": "ANDA",
    "sourceUrl": "https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/acronyms/index.cfm",
    "dataVersion": "2026-10-18"
  },
  {
    "acronym": "XYZ123",
    "definition": null,
    "found": false,
    "matchedBy": "acronym",
    "query": "XYZ123",
    "sourceUrl": "https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/acronyms/index.cfm",
    "dataVersion": "2026-10-18"
  }
]

Download the full FDA acronyms list as CSV, JSON or Excel

Start the actor with an empty input ({}) and open the Dataset tab: the Export button offers JSON, CSV, Excel (XLSX), XML, HTML and RSS. For a plain CSV file, open the run's Key-value store tab and download fda-acronyms.csv. You can also fetch either through the API, for example:

https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<datasetId>/items?format=csv

Use the FDA acronyms database as a tool for AI agents

Through Apify's MCP server, any agent — Claude, ChatGPT, custom LangChain or LlamaIndex agents — can call this actor to resolve regulatory jargon on the fly: pass a list of acronyms, get back definitions with a found flag, no scraping and no hallucinated expansions. Because the data is bundled, responses are deterministic and take about a second.

FAQ

What does FDA stand for, and what are the main FDA acronyms?

FDA is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Its centers and offices are themselves acronyms you will see everywhere: CDER (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research), CBER (Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research), CDRH (Center for Devices and Radiological Health), CFSAN (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition), CVM (Center for Veterinary Medicine), ORA (Office of Regulatory Affairs). Run the actor with {"search": "Center for"} to list them all.

What do ANDA, NDA, BLA and IND mean?

ANDA — Abbreviated New Drug Application (generic drugs). NDA — New Drug Application. BLA — Biologics License Application. IND — Investigational New Drug application. Look them up together with {"acronyms": ["ANDA", "NDA", "BLA", "IND"]}.

Where does the data come from, and how often is it updated?

Every entry comes from FDA's own CDER Acronyms & Abbreviations database, downloaded as the official spreadsheet, cleaned (whitespace, duplicates) and bundled with the actor. The dataVersion field on every row tells you the snapshot date. The bundled copy is refreshed with new actor builds; if you spot a missing or outdated entry, open an issue on the Issues tab.

Can I get the FDA acronyms list as a PDF?

The actor exports JSON, CSV, Excel, XML and HTML. Export to Excel or HTML and print to PDF if you need a printable list.

Does the actor scrape fda.gov?

No. It never contacts fda.gov during a run, so it cannot be rate-limited or blocked and it never puts load on a government website. That is also why results are instant.

Is the data free to reuse?

Yes. It is published by a U.S. federal agency and listed on data.gov under an open license. Please credit FDA as the source.

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Support

Questions, missing acronyms or feature requests (for example another FDA center's glossary)? Use the Issues tab on this page — it's answered quickly. If the actor saved you time, a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review helps other people find it.