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40,000+ mystery NDCs

Vocabulary Users
#1

Hello,

Here are 40k+ NDCs

  • they exist in OHDSI Athena
  • RxNav has record of some/most of them (even though the relationship between NDC and RXCUI “isn’t maintained by NLM”) - screenshot below
  • via RxNav, it appears that MTHSPL is the source (DailyMed SPL info stored in RxNorm), but i don’t see them in the rxnsat table of the RxNorm data like other MTHSPL NDCs
  • generally, you also won’t be able to find them by searching NDC in DailyMed
  • also - they are NOT in RxNorm historical NDCs as accessed via the API
  • also they are not in any of the current FDA data files

Within Athena, where do these NDCs come from? Are they from some other source I’m not aware of? Are they user contributions over time? Are they from archived versions of DailyMed SPLs? Any clues would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

1 Like
#2

Hello @Joseph_LeGrand . Thank you for your question. The NDCs in OHDSI Athena come from diverse sources, including RxNorm (coming from FDB, GPI, Multum, FDA), from the FDA SPL on the website and on Dailymed. We also used some other (historical) sources that are not in NDC official files. Primarily, they are coming from RxNav - it’s the source for this codes which you are asking about. Some NDCs may not be in mainstream sources due to age or local creation by pharmaceutical companies. In Athena, these codes, though missing from primary sources, are likely sourced from RxNav and may not be current or may have local origins.

#3

@TetianaOrlova - Thank you so much! That is super helpful and definitely aligns with what I’ve been observing. How does one “download” those missing RxNav NDCs most efficiently? Via an RxNorm API endpoint? Some RxMix magic? Do you have to use RxNav-In-A-Box? I haven’t found anything promising with some cursory Googling.

#4

@TetianaOrlova - is the “sourcing” of these NDCs from RxNav visible in the open-source repos of OHDSI / Athena?

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