DrugBank Clinical API

DrugBank Clinical API is a drug information platform designed for integration into healthcare software applications. It provides structured, evidence-based drug data to support clinical decision-making, including drug interaction checking, drug search, and patient-facing drug information. The API is modular, allowing healthcare software developers to select a base module and layer on additional data modules, plugins, and regional or cross-mapping functionality based on their specific needs.

The platform is organized into four tiers: a required base module, optional add-on modules, module-based plugins, and add-on functionality covering additional regions, identifier cross-mappings, and offline use.

Base Module: Drug Search

• Drug Product List and Concepts: Captures, stores, and organizes drug information at varying levels of specificity, including route, dosage, and form.
• Fuzzy and Autocomplete Search: Reduces typing errors and speeds up drug data retrieval.
• Drug and Therapeutic Categories: Supports cross-referencing with Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), chemical taxonomy, and Established Pharmacological Class (EPC).
• ATC Code Cross-Mappings: Enables identification of alternative drugs for a condition by cross-referencing Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) codes.
• Simple and Clinical Descriptions: Provides drug information formatted for both healthcare professionals and non-clinical users.

Add-On Modules

• Adverse Effects: Includes specific effects, incidence rates, and clinical trial information. Can be linked to external identifiers with additional functionality.
• Allergies: Covers cross-sensitivity overviews, lists of potentially sensitive drugs, and incidence rates.
• Contraindications and Blackbox Warnings: Linked to conditions; covers pregnancy, age, disease interactions, and drug-drug interactions.
• Drug Interactions: Provides severity ratings, interaction descriptions, and management details. Searchable by ingredients, products, or product concepts.
• Conditions Search: Includes condition details for drugs such as severity, status, and stage of a condition or disease.
• Indications: Lists specific conditions and symptoms for each indication, indication type, and includes a similar drugs search.
• Pharmacology: Covers mechanism of action, metabolism, absorption, distribution, elimination, and pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic parameters.
• US Drug Labels: FDA-approved, manufacturer drug label information available in three formats: Patient Medication Guides, Supplementary Label Information, and Health Professional Information.

Module-Based Plugins

• Medication Search Plugin: Available with the base module; provides a pre-designed, ready-to-integrate interface for medication search.
• Drug-Drug Interactions Plugin: Available with the Drug Interactions add-on module.
• Conditions/ICD-10 Search Plugin: Available with the Conditions add-on module.

Plugins come with pre-designed interfaces intended to be flexible and straightforward to integrate into existing software.

Add-On Functionality: Regional Coverage

• Supports expansion of drug product lists beyond a primary region.
• Available regions include: United States, European Union, Canada, Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey, Italy, Malaysia, Colombia, Austria, and Singapore.
• End users can search across multiple regional product lists simultaneously.

Add-On Functionality: Cross-Mapping Integrations

• Conditions and adverse effects data can be linked to external identifiers to support connectivity with existing systems.
• Supported identifier standards include: SNOMED-CT, MedDRA, and ICD-10.
• Use of these integrations requires external licenses for the relevant identifier systems.

Add-On Functionality: Offline Use

• Enables offline lookup for medications and drugs, supporting medication entry recording without an active internet connection.
• Offline access covers product and drug lists for chosen regions.

DrugBank Clinical API supports integration with healthcare software across multiple regions and clinical contexts. A free API trial is available, and the platform can be tailored to specific organizational requirements. Prospective users can contact DrugBank directly to discuss module selection and configuration.