# /ema/medicines

`POST /api/ema/medicines`

Price: 20 credits

Look up one medicine on the EU centrally authorised register. Returns the full register record — status, EMA product number, active substance and INN, MeSH therapeutic areas, ATC code, pharmacotherapeutic group, marketing authorisation holder, the therapeutic indication text, the nine regulatory flags and the whole date set — together with what only the medicine's own page carries: the holder's postal address, the assessment overview written for the public, and every published PDF of the medicine keyed by document type and by language.

## How to use it

Takes the slug of a medicine page, not its trade name and not the EMA product number: `keytruda` works, `Keytruda 25 mg` does not, and `EMEA/H/C/003820` does not. Get the slug from ema/medicines/search, which returns it inside `url`. A slug resolves under one register only, so `/veterinary/EPAR/keytruda` is a miss while `/human/EPAR/keytruda` is a hit; passing the bare slug lets either register answer. `overview_sections` is the plain-language assessment summary, present on about two thirds of the register and on every authorised human medicine of a 120-record uniform random sample, yet not predictable from `status`: refused and withdrawn applications often carry one while veterinary records and human records that lapsed, expired, were revoked or were withdrawn after authorisation do not, so read the field rather than filtering on status. `documents` links the PDFs rather than carrying their text.

## Parameters

- `access-token` (string, required)

## Request body

- `timeout` (integer) — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
- `medicine` (string, required) — Medicine URL from ema/medicines/search, or the bare slug at the end of it. A bare slug is resolved against both the human and the veterinary register (examples: "https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/keytruda", "keytruda", "/en/medicines/veterinary/EPAR/apoquel"; minLength: 1)

## Response

### 200 — Successful Response

- `@type` (string) (default: "EmaMedicineDetail")
- `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)
- `marketing_authorisation_holder_address` (string, nullable)
- `product_details` (object) (default: {})
  - `*` (string)
- `overview_sections` (array) (default: [])
  - `@type` (string) (default: "EmaMedicineSection")
  - `heading` (string) (default: "")
  - `text` (string) (default: "")
- `documents` (array) (default: [])
  - `@type` (string) (default: "EmaMedicineDocument")
  - `url` (string) (default: "")
  - `document_title` (string) (default: "")
  - `document_type` (string) (default: "")
  - `language` (string) (default: "")

## Errors

### 422 — Validation Error

medicine was neither a slug nor an EMA medicine URL.

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 medicine on the register has that slug, or it does not exist under the category given.

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.