Docs / Get started

Medifontis API documentation

Medifontis is a REST API over the official medicine registers of 199 countries. Search medicines by name, active ingredient or national code and get records with their source, licence and limitations.

Base URL

Every endpoint lives under one host, is versioned in the path and answers JSON:

https://api.medifontis.com/v1

Your first request

Search a medicine with a country code and a query. This is a real request; the response below is what it returned.

GET /v1/drugs
curl -G https://api.medifontis.com/v1/drugs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MEDIFONTIS_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "country=gb" \
  --data-urlencode "q=amoxicillin"
Response
{
  "country": "gb",
  "results": [
    {
      "country": "gb",
      "sourceId": "gb.nhsbsa.bnf-snomed",
      "id": "gb:nhsbsa:dmd:196111000001109",
      "kind": "amp",
      "name": "Almodan 125mg/5ml syrup (Teva UK Ltd)",
      "names": [
        "Almodan 125mg/5ml syrup (Teva UK Ltd)",
        "Almodan 125mg/5ml syrup",
        "Amoxicillin"
      ],
      "identifiers": [
        {
          "value": "196111000001109",
          "scheme": "dmd"
        },
        {
          "value": "0501013B0BDABAJ",
          "scheme": "bnf"
        },
        {
          "value": "774586009",
          "scheme": "vtm"
        }
      ],
      "data": {
        "name": "Almodan 125mg/5ml syrup (Teva UK Ltd)",
        "level": "AMP",
        "bnfCode": "0501013B0BDABAJ",
        "bnfName": "Almodan 125mg/5ml syrup",
        "vtmCode": "774586009",
        "vtmName": "Amoxicillin"
      },
      "retrievedAt": "2026-10-20T02:32:49.259Z",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/prescription-data/understanding-our-data/bnf-snomed-mapping",
      "licence": {
        "id": "OGL-UK-3.0",
        "attribution": "BNF SNOMED Mapping data, NHSBSA Copyright 2026. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence."
      }
    }
  ],
  "nextOffset": 2
}

Principles

  • Official sources only. Every record comes from a national regulator, ministry or agency, collected as the publisher released it.
  • Sources stay independent. Medifontis never merges records or relates them by name. Different sources can describe the same medicine.
  • Unknown stays unknown. When a source does not say whether a medicine needs a prescription, is marketed or is reimbursed, the record says unknown rather than guessing.
  • Provenance travels with the data. Each record states its source URL, retrieval time, licence and limitations.