# /ema/collections/search

`POST /api/ema/collections/search`

Price: 10 credits

Search one of the EMA's smaller public registers — supply shortages, safety referrals, direct healthcare professional communications, orphan designations, paediatric investigation plans, periodic safety update assessments, herbal monographs, maximum residue limits, opinions on medicines for use outside the EU, post-authorisation applications, news and events. Narrows by the record's own title, free text across every field, exact values on any field the register publishes, and the publication and last-update dates. Every match carries its whole record and the link to its page.

## How to use it

One `collection` per call, and the registers share almost no field names: a shortage has `supply_shortage_status` and `medicine_affected`, a referral has `current_status` and `referral_type`, so `filters` keys are only valid within the collection chosen and anything else is rejected with the list of what that collection does publish. `name` and `reference` are this endpoint's normalisation of each register's own naming; the untouched record is in `fields`, which is where to read anything the typed fields do not carry. Medicines themselves are not here — use ema/medicines/search. Several registers key records by active substance rather than by trade name, so an ingredient is usually the better query.

## Parameters

- `access-token` (string, required)

## Request body

- `timeout` (integer) — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
- `collection` (string, required) — Which EMA register to search. Each is a separate file with its own set of fields (one of: "referrals", "paediatric_investigation_plans", "orphan_designations", "psusa", "dhpc", "shortages", "herbal_medicines", "medicine_use_outside_eu", "maximum_residue_limits", "post_authorisation", "news", "events"; examples: "shortages", "referrals", "orphan_designations")
- `record_name` (string, nullable) — Substring of the record's own name or title (examples: "Natpar"; minLength: 1)
- `text` (string, nullable) — Substring matched across every field of the record (examples: "insulin"; minLength: 1)
- `filters` (object, nullable) — Exact-match filters keyed by the register's own field names. A field the chosen collection does not publish is rejected (examples: {"supply_shortage_status":"Shortage ongoing"}, {"category":"Veterinary"})
  - `*` (string)
- `published_from` (string, nullable) — Keep records first published on or after this date, YYYY-MM-DD (examples: "2025-01-01")
- `updated_from` (string, nullable) — Keep records last updated on or after this date, YYYY-MM-DD (examples: "2026-01-01")
- `count` (integer, required) — Max number of records to return (min: 1; max: 4000)

## Response

### 200 — Successful Response

- `@type` (string) (default: "EmaCollectionRecord")
- `id` (string, required)
- `collection` (string) (default: "")
- `name` (string) (default: "")
- `url` (string) (default: "")
- `reference` (string, nullable)
- `category` (string, nullable)
- `status` (string, nullable)
- `published_date` (string, nullable)
- `updated_date` (string, nullable)
- `fields` (object) (default: {})
  - `*` (string)

## Errors

### 422 — Validation Error

A filter key the collection does not publish, or a date that was not YYYY-MM-DD.

What to do: Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.

- `detail` (array)
  - `loc` (array, required)
  - `msg` (string, required)
  - `type` (string, required)
  - `input` (any)
  - `ctx` (object)

### 408

The request ran past its time limit

What to do: Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.

### 412

No record in that collection matched those filters.

What to do: Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.

### 429

Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted

What to do: When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.

### 500

Something broke on our side

What to do: Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.

### 529

Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded

What to do: Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

## Response envelope

Success: Array of objects (may be empty if no results)

Error: Error may coexist with partial results if it occurs mid-execution. Check X-Error header and status code.

Every response carries these headers:

- `X-Error` — Error message text (present only on error)
- `X-Request-ID` — Unique request identifier
- `X-Execution-Time` — Execution time in seconds
- `X-Result-Count` — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
- `X-Total-Available-Results` — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
- `X-Warning` — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
- `X-Retry-After` — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.