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Frequently Asked Questions - WHO Drug |
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1. What is WHO Drug?WHO Drug is a dictionary of medicinal product information. It is used to identify drug names and provides information about a drug's active ingredients and its therapeutic use(s). WHO Drug is the de-facto standard within the biopharmaceutical industry for classifying drugs, including prescription drugs, over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, herbal remedies, blood products, diagnostic substances, and biotech products. WHO Drug originates from 1968 from information collected as part of the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring. Return to top |
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2. From where can I obtain WHO Drug?WHO Drug is licensed from the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC). The UMC is the field name of the WHO Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring. Click here to go to our Useful Links page where you will find a link for the UMC web site. Return to top |
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3. If you are doing our WHO Drug coding, do I still need a WHO Drug license?Yes. The WHO Drug license agreement prevents us from giving coded data to another company unless that company also holds a valid WHO Drug license. So even if ThesIS is doing your coding and/or versioning, you will still need to purchase a WHO Drug license. Moreover, giving WHO Drug (or any part of it) to an unlicensed party is considered a material breach of the WHO Drug license agreement that can result in a contractual penalty of SEK 1,500,000. Return to top |
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4. What are the different WHO Drug dictionaries available? Which one should I use?There are three different WHO Drug dictionaries available:
The WHO Drug Dictionary is the "original" dictionary and the only one available prior to June 2005. The WHO Drug Dictionary Enhanced is a result of a collaboration between the UMC and IMS Health. IMS Health has a network of regional offices where the data are collected via a wide variety of published sources and by direct contact with product manufacturers. The IMS Health data contains OTC products and prescription products and covers nearly 100% of the products used in each country. The WHO Drug Dictionary Enhanced combines the data in the "original" WHO Drug Dictionary with the additional data from IMS Health. The WHO Herbal Dictionary, as the name implies, consists of drugs that contain ingredients of natural origin. The products entered in the WHO Herbal Dictionary are those that only contain herbal ingredients. Products that contain a mix of herbal ingredients and conventional medicines appear in the WHO Drug Dictionary. The WHO Herbal Dictionary has a separate classification system, called Herbal ATC. With the release of the WHO Drug Dictionary Enhanced, the original WHO Drug Dictionary is no longer available for new subscribers to WHO Drug. Companies that had a subscription to the original WHO Drug Dictionary when the Enhanced version was introduced can continue to subscribe to the WHO Drug Dictionary or can upgrade to the Enhanced version. Once a subscriber chooses to upgrade to the Enhanced version, it will no longer have the option to revert to the original WHO Drug Dictionary. |
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5. What is the difference between WHO Drug, WHODRUG, WHO-DD, and WHO-DRL?WHO Drug, WHO-DD, and WHODRUG all refer to the same thing, i.e. the WHO Drug Dictionary. WHO-DRL is actually an old name referring to the paper copy of the dictionary that used be produced from an old database, but many people also use WHO-DRL to refer to the current WHO Drug Dictionary. Return to top |
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6. What are the differences between the WHO Drug formats (A, B1, B2 and C)?Format A is the old format produced by the UMC from 1992 to mid-2002. It is no longer supported. The B formats replaced the A format. Both B formats are distributed using the same file structure. The difference between the B formats is in the content. In the B1 format, the Drug Name will not be unique. They will be repeated for entries with different companies and/or countries. In the B2 format, the Drug Name will be unique. If there are multiple entries in B1 with the same Drug Name, the first entry will be included in the B2 format. Format C is the newest format and has a more complicated file structure than the B formats. The most significant difference in content is the addition of information about dosage form and strength. Like the B1 format, there can be multiple entries with the same Drug Name. Format C was supposed to replace the two B formats, with the B formats discontinued as of the end of 2005. However, due to the complexities inherent with Format C and the difficulties in migrating from the B formats, the UMC has since announced that the B formats will continue to be distributed indefinitely. Current releases of WHO Drug include both B formats as well as Format C. Return to top |
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7. Where can I get more information about WHO Drug?General information about WHO Drug is available from the UMC web site (accessible via our Useful Links page). You can also contact us with WHO Drug questions. In addition, we offer training classes on WHO Drug. Return to top |
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8. To which WHO Drug formats can you code?We can code to any of the WHO Drug formats. Our thesaurus system has full support for all of the WHO Drug formats. Return to top |
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9. Which WHO Drug format should I use?Each of the currently available WHO Drug formats (B1, B2, and C) has advantages and disadvantages. We can assess your particular circumstances and needs to determine the WHO Drug format that is most appropriate for you. Some thesaurus, clinical trial, and/or drug safety systems cannot support Format C. We can evaluate your current systems to determine their compatibility with Format C. Return to top |
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10. Do you have any examples of common mistakes with WHO Drug coding?Mistakes with WHO Drug coding typically arise because of a lack of familiarity with WHO Drug itself (including its flaws and idiosyncrasies) or unfamiliarity with the drug market. These mistakes are augmented by thesaurus systems that fail to provide sufficient details (such as ingredients, country, manufacturer, etc.) about the entries in the dictionary. Multiple Entries for Same Drug Name In Format C, WHO Drug often has multiple entries with the same drug name. In Formats B1 and B2, it has entries where drug codes and/or country codes are appended to the same drug name so that they form unique text strings but are still functionally duplicate entries. Inexperienced coders often choose the wrong entry among these duplicate entries, either because they are unaware that more than one entry exists or because they are unable to determine which entry is the correct one. Format B1 of WHO Drug (March 2006) contains eight entries for Mylanta. Format B2 contains four entries, and Format C contains 11 entries. A coder must be able to see the details of each entry, as well as have sufficient information in the reported term, to be able to accurately code. For example, in Format B2, a coder would need to choose among the following entries:
The reported term would minimally need to indicate what type of aluminum, if any, the Mylanta being reported contained. In addition, the coder would need to be able to see the list of ingredients corresponding to each entry, something that many thesaurus systems unfortunately do not provide. Inexperienced coders will sometimes "guess" at the entry rather than querying the reported drug term for further information and/or determining the ingredients corresponding to each WHO Drug entry. Drug Entries with Misleading Drug Names WHO Drug has instances where an entry has a misleading drug name because its ingredients differ from what one would expect based on the name. For example, an inexperienced coder might code the reported term of: CALCIUM AND VITAMIN D to the entry of: CALCIUM WITH VITAMIN D which at first glance would seem to be a reasonable choice. However, upon looking at the details of this entry within WHO Drug:
it becomes apparent that this is a poor choice (because the entry contains ingredients in addition to what was reported) and that: CALCIUM W/VITAMIN D NOS is the correct coding for this term. Similar Names, But Different Drugs Coders who lack sufficient familiarity with the drug market often will mistakenly think a term is a misspelling of a drug when in fact the supposedly misspelled drug is actually a correctly spelled name of a valid -- but entirely different -- drug. For example:
Achieving Accurate Coding To achieve accurate WHO Drug coding and avoid mistakes such as those described above, it is imperative to verify a WHO Drug entry's ingredient(s) before assigning it to a reported term. Return to top |
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11. What is the difference between accuracy and consistency?Please see the answer to this question in our Services FAQ. Return to top |
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12. Do you use a WHO Drug autoencoder?We do not use any autoencoders for WHO Drug coding. Autoencoders perform string matches against drug names in WHO Drug without also taking into account the ingredients associated with each drug name. Matching solely against the drug name therefore provides inaccurate results. Instead of an autoencoder, our proprietary thesaurus system has powerful search capabilities that allow our coders to view the full details, including all the ingredients, for any drug entry in WHO Drug. This combination of expert staff with state of the art technology delivers far better results than autoencoders can provide. Click here to go to our Services FAQ to learn about our general opinion of autoencoders. Return to top |
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13. Which information from WHO Drug will you return with my coded data?We can return as much or as little of the WHO Drug dictionary as you desire. For data coded to the B formats, this includes:
For data coded to Format C, this includes:
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14. How do you handle the drugs that have more than one ATC code available? Which ATC code will I get back with my coded data?For drugs that have more than one ATC code, we will provide you a report that shows the available ATC choices for each drug. Once you select an ATC code for each drug listed, we will store that selection in our thesaurus system. These selections will then automatically be used the next time data is coded to those drugs. In other words, you select the ATC code you want, and we then make that your default for future coding. Return to top |
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15. How does your WHO Drug versioning service work?We first load into our thesaurus system your data as currently coded (unless we are already coding your data, in which case your data will of course already be in our system). We then go through a innovative process to migrate your data to the newer WHO Drug version. Please refer to our WHO Drug versioning page for details on the steps performed to update your data. This updating process is done entirely within our system. Once this versioning process is done, we provide to you a file containing all of your reported terms along with the coding as updated to the newer version. You can load this file into your clinical trials and/or drug safety systems. You can also convert this file into SAS and use it directly to re-analyze your data. The decision of when and how to apply the new version is therefore entirely within your control. We also provide reports that show you the differences between the original coding and the coding to the newer version, including those instances where the term is still coded to the same drug entry, but the associated information (e.g. ingredients, ATC code) for that drug entry has changed within the new version. Return to top |
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16. How does your WHO Drug versioning service differ from the versioning services from other companies?Our WHO Drug versioning service is superior to our competitors' offerings in a number of ways:
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17. Do you offer any training on WHO Drug?We offer several training classes covering WHO Drug. In addition, we offer one-on-one WHO Drug training intended to supplement "standard" WHO Drug coding classes. Training one-on-one with a ThesIS expert enables your coder(s) to get a better and more specific understanding of WHO Drug than is achievable through a class setting. Return to top |
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