/ema/medicines/search

POST /api/ema/medicines/search

Price: 20 credits

Search the EU register of centrally authorised medicines. Narrows by trade name, active substance, INN, human or veterinary register, regulatory status, ATC code prefix, MeSH therapeutic area, pharmacotherapeutic group, marketing authorisation holder, target species, the text of the therapeutic indication, the nine regulatory flags, and the authorisation and last-update dates. Returns the full register record for every match, newest publication first.

How to use it

The register covers only EU centrally authorised medicines, so a product authorised nationally in one member state is absent however it is spelled. Text filters match a substring anywhere in the field and are case-insensitive; `atc_code` is the one prefix filter, so `L01` keeps a whole ATC class. Withdrawn, refused and lapsed products stay on the register, and `status` is what separates them from the live ones — search without it and roughly a third of the answer is historical. `atcvet_code`, `pharmacotherapeutic_group_veterinary` and `species` are veterinary-only and the human records leave them empty, but the register fills them unevenly — the group on about seven in eight veterinary records and the ATCvet code and species on about one in six — so filtering on `species` returns a fraction of the veterinary register rather than all of it, and `category` is what selects the whole of it. Feed `url` to ema/medicines for the assessment overview and the published PDFs.

Parameters

• access-token string required

Request body

• timeout integer — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
• name string nullable — Substring of the medicine's trade name (examples: "keytruda", "insulin"; minLength: 1)
• active_substance string nullable — Substring of the active substance (examples: "pembrolizumab"; minLength: 1)
• inn string nullable — Substring of the international non-proprietary or common name (examples: "adalimumab"; minLength: 1)
• category string nullable — Human or veterinary register. Unset returns both (one of: "Human", "Veterinary")
• status string nullable — Regulatory status of the medicine on the register (one of: "Authorised", "Withdrawn", "Application withdrawn", "Refused", "Lapsed", "Opinion", "Expired", "Revoked", "Suspended", "Opinion under re-examination", "Withdrawn from rolling review")
• atc_code string nullable — ATC code, matched as a prefix, so L01 keeps every antineoplastic agent (examples: "L01FF02", "L01"; minLength: 1)
• therapeutic_area string nullable — Substring of a MeSH therapeutic area (examples: "Melanoma"; minLength: 1)
• pharmacotherapeutic_group string nullable — Substring of the pharmacotherapeutic group (examples: "Antineoplastic agents"; minLength: 1)
• marketing_authorisation_holder string nullable — Substring of the authorisation holder's name (examples: "Novartis"; minLength: 1)
• indication string nullable — Substring of the therapeutic indication text (examples: "melanoma"; minLength: 1)
• species string nullable — Target species of a veterinary medicine (examples: "Dogs"; minLength: 1)
• accelerated_assessment boolean nullable — Assessed under the accelerated timetable
• additional_monitoring boolean nullable — Subject to additional safety monitoring
• advanced_therapy boolean nullable — Advanced therapy medicinal product
• biosimilar boolean nullable — Authorised as a biosimilar
• conditional_approval boolean nullable — Holds a conditional marketing authorisation
• exceptional_circumstances boolean nullable — Authorised under exceptional circumstances
• generic boolean nullable — Authorised as a generic
• orphan_medicine boolean nullable — Carries an orphan designation
• prime_priority_medicine boolean nullable — Supported under the PRIME scheme
• authorised_from string nullable — Keep medicines authorised on or after this date, YYYY-MM-DD (examples: "2020-01-01")
• authorised_to string nullable — Keep medicines authorised on or before this date, YYYY-MM-DD (examples: "2024-12-31")
• updated_from string nullable — Keep records the register updated on or after this date, YYYY-MM-DD (examples: "2026-09-01")
• count integer required — Max number of medicines to return (min: 1; max: 3000)

Response

• @type string (default: "EmaMedicine")
• id string required
• name string (default: "")
• category string (default: "")
• status string (default: "")
• url string (default: "")
• active_substance string nullable
• inn_or_common_name array (default: [])
• therapeutic_areas array (default: [])
• atc_code string nullable
• atcvet_code string nullable
• pharmacotherapeutic_group string nullable
• pharmacotherapeutic_group_veterinary string nullable
• species array (default: [])
• marketing_authorisation_holder string nullable
• therapeutic_indication string nullable
• revision_number string nullable
• opinion_status string nullable
• latest_procedure_affecting_product_information string nullable
• is_accelerated_assessment boolean nullable
• is_under_additional_monitoring boolean nullable
• is_advanced_therapy boolean nullable
• is_biosimilar boolean nullable
• is_conditional_approval boolean nullable
• is_exceptional_circumstances boolean nullable
• is_generic boolean nullable
• is_orphan_medicine boolean nullable
• is_prime_priority_medicine boolean nullable
• is_patient_safety_flagged boolean nullable
• published_date string nullable
• updated_date string nullable
• marketing_authorisation_date string nullable
• european_commission_decision_date string nullable
• opinion_adopted_date string nullable
• start_of_evaluation_date string nullable
• start_of_rolling_review_date string nullable
• withdrawal_of_application_date string nullable
• withdrawal_expiry_revocation_lapse_date string nullable
• refusal_of_marketing_authorisation_date string nullable
• suspension_of_marketing_authorisation_date string nullable

Errors

• 422 — A date field was not YYYY-MM-DD. Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.
• 408 — The request ran past its time limit 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 — Nothing on the register matched those filters. 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 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 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 Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

Response 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.