Pharmaceutical codes are used in medical classification to uniquely identify medication. They may uniquely identify an active ingredient, drug system (including inactive ingredients and time-release agents) in general, or a specific pharmaceutical product from a specific manufacturer.
Examples
Drug system identifiers (manufacturer-specific including inactive ingredients):
Hierarchical systems:
Ingredients:
Proprietary database identifiers include those assigned by First Databank, Micromedex, MediSpan, Gold Standard Drug Database (published by Elsevier), and Cerner Multum MediSource Lexicon; these are cross-indexed by RxNorm, which also assigns a unique identifier (RxCUI) to every combination of active ingredient and dose level.[2]
See also
References