Categories: Medicinal Chemistry

Index Nominum: International Drug Directory

Description

Are you looking for a German pharmaceutical preparation that is not longer on the market? Or an equivalent preparation available in another country? Are you faced with a prescription for a foreign preparation? No problem!
This unique pharmaceutical index includes

• 5100 active substances (and derivatives) with international non-proprietary names (INN), German, French, Spanish and Latin substance names, structural and molecular formulas, CAS registry numbers and 15,500 synonyms,
• 70,000 proprietary names from more than 16,500 manufacturers from 171 countries,
• therapeutic groups with ATC codes of the WHO for pharmaceuticals used in human and veterinary medicine,
• valuable search assistance with an alphabetical index of all trade names, pharmaceutical substances and synonyms as well as a separate ATC and ATCvet substance index.

Editorial Review

For more than 50 years, Index Nominum has been the definitive work for the names of brand-name drugs, through which the structures and CAS Reg. Nos. of the corresponding active ingredients can readily be found. The detailed index of brand names can, for example, provide the pharmacist who is faced with a foreign prescription with a list of the corresponding domestic drug products. On the other hand, the listing (on a CD-ROM) of the names and addresses of the manufacturers of the respective drugs is of interest for purposes of cooperation between pharmaceutical companies.

The Index Nominum covers a seemingly endless number of commercial names and manufacturing companies, which are arranged according to the actual drug substance. Despite the information from the chemical perspective being limited to the structure and chemical synonyms (CAS Reg No, CAS name, IUPAC name), and the drug action being described merely in one or two words (e.g., “antidepressant”), doing a commercial name search in the Index Nominum facilitates entry into the broader literature.

It is a pity that the CD-ROM gives only the addresses of the manufacturing companies, and that there is no structurally searchable form of the Index Nominum. Structure-searchable databases on the internet are more interesting to chemists, but for the most part these so far do not contain a treasure trove of specialized information: the multitude of names from the Index Nominum. The Index Nominum is really not needed on a daily basis in research; it serves its purpose instead as a library resource. However, a personal copy is definitely recommended for pharmacists and medical doctors..