WHODrug Global
Available in English and Chinese, WHODrug Global has evolved to become the most comprehensive and actively used drug reference dictionary in the world.
Standardised Drug Information
WHODrug Global is the international reference for medicinal product information and it is maintained by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre. With its unique drug code hierarchy and extensive coverage, it provides a consistent drug dictionary with exact terminology when coding concomitant medications. The dictionary is used to identify drug names and evaluate medicinal product information, including active ingredients and products’ anatomical and therapeutic classifications, from nearly 150 countries.
WHODrug data covers both conventional medicines and herbal remedies. The conventional medicines include prescription-only products, over-the-counter (OTC) and pharmacist-dispensed preparations, as well as biotech and blood products, diagnostic substances and contrast media. Products and substances registered by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are also routinely recorded.
The data is continuously updated, with new releases twice a year, on 1 March and 1 September, and available to subscribers either as text and csv files or via our browsing tool, WHODrug Insight. Learn more about how to implement WHODrug Global here.
Benefits of WHODrug Global
WHODrug Global’s standardised data makes it easier to identify drug-related problems in clinical trials and pharmacovigilance, helping you to develop safer medicines. This is because using WHODrug to code data supports more effective analysis, speeding up the regulatory submission process.
WHODrug Global is also an indispensable source when interpreting and evaluating drug safety issues in VigiBase, WHO’s global database of adverse event reports. WHODrug Global enables identification and data aggregation at different levels of precision to ensure effective and accurate safety signal analysis.
Regulatory authorities worldwide are increasingly recognising the importance of submitting drug data in a standardised format, as well as the value of using a common dictionary and exact terminology for clinical trials and monitoring drug safety. WHODrug Global is mandated by the US FDA for studies starting after 15 March 2019 and recommended by Japan’s Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA). Through a Chinese edition of the dictionary, WHODrug hopes to assist with the development of pharmacovigilance in China, as well as the integration of its drug regulatory system with the international community.
WHODrug Global Chinese
WHODrug Global now provides standardised and quality-assured information for coding directly in Chinese. It also simplifies the regulatory submission process both inside and outside China with instant translations of English and Chinese drug information.
Make the most of
WHODrug data
A subscription to WHODrug Global gives you access to WHODrug Standardised Drug Groupings (WHODrug SDGs) and several analytical tools.
- WHODrug SDGs group drugs based on their pharmacological effects or metabolic pathways. WHODrug SDGs help users to identify drugs with the same properties and create medications of interest and protocol violation lists in clinical trials.
- Recent additions to the WHODrug family include our browsing tool, WHODrug Insight; the impact analysis tool WHODrug CAT, which supports upversioning of WHODrug; and WHODrug Change Request, which allows WHODrug users to request modifications to dictionary content.
Available add-ons include WHODrug Koda, our automated assistant for drug and ATC coding; WHODrug Cross Reference Tool Japan (CRT Japan), which converts Japanese IDF codes into WHODrug codes; and WHODrug Cross Reference ATC 5 for the assignment of ATC 5th level codes.
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For any questions, contact us at WHODrug@who-umc.org.