Since the early part of this year we have been working on a project to enable users of the site to search for interactions using the trade names of their drugs. We are pleased to announce that the first phase of this project is now live on the website.
Trade names have been entered for the generic drugs listed on the site based on information in the UK electronic Medicines Compendium (www.medicines.org.uk/emc) and its Irish equivalent (www.medicines.ie), drugs with a central marketing authorisation from the European Commission (www.ema.europa.eu/ema), and drugs listed in the US Food and Drug Administration’s Orange Book (Orange Book: Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations). We are working on expanding coverage to the rest of the world and will be adding updates over the next few months. We are also looking at ways to make clearer the link between a trade name and generic name(s).
Trade names have been entered for the generic drugs listed on the site based on information in the UK electronic Medicines Compendium (www.medicines.org.uk/emc) and its Irish equivalent (www.medicines.ie), drugs with a central marketing authorisation from the European Commission (www.ema.europa.eu/ema), and drugs listed in the US Food and Drug Administration’s Orange Book (Orange Book: Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations). We are working on expanding coverage to the rest of the world and will be adding updates over the next few months. We are also looking at ways to make clearer the link between a trade name and generic name(s).
The trade names are listed on a separate tab during the selection process for HIV drugs and when co-medications are listed alphabetically. A search/select feature has also been included on these tabs. One complication of the project was that in some cases trade names, unlike generic names, can refer to two or more drugs co-formulated as one product. However, the selection process has been structured so that when a co-formulated trade name is selected all the underlying generic drugs are selected.
We will be working with the iChart developers to see how and when trade names can be incorporated into the Apple and Android apps.
As ever, we welcome your feed back on this new feature of the website.
