Product · 02
MedData
API
Public FDA drug and supplement reference data, served clean.
Note. MedData is a developer reference API over public FDA datasets. It is informational and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It does not sell, dispense, prescribe, or facilitate the purchase of any medication.
At a glance
Atomic facts about the MedData API. Current as of May 2026.
- What it is
- Developer reference API unifying public U.S. FDA drug data sources.
- Data sources
- openFDA, RxNorm, NIH Office of Dietary Supplements.
- Free tier
- $0/month, 250 API calls.
- Paid plans
- Starter $29 (5,000), Growth $79 (25,000), Business $199 (100,000). Enterprise custom.
- Identifiers
- RxCUI, NDC, normalized brand and generic names.
- HIPAA scope
- Not a covered entity. Public reference data only.
- LLM / RAG use
- Explicitly permitted under our Terms.
- Agent access (MCP)
- MCP server. Install via uvx meddata-mcp or Smithery.
- Launched
- May 2026. Status: Live.
The problem
The government publishes detailed drug and supplement data through separate systems: openFDA for drug labels and adverse events, RxNorm for naming and identifiers, and the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements for supplements and interactions.
The data is comprehensive. Querying it requires understanding three different schemas, three sets of conventions, and three kinds of edge cases.
What MedData is
A single, developer-friendly API that brings these sources together. Built for developers building health-information tools, research applications, and consumer-information products that need clean public reference data without the data-engineering overhead.
Query capabilities
- → Drug profiles by name, RxCUI, or NDC code
- → Active ingredients, dosage forms, and FDA approval status
- → Drug interaction data from public FDA labels
- → Supplement profiles, dosages, evidence summaries, and drug-supplement interactions (NIH ODS)
A glimpse
{
"results": [
{
"rxcui": "6809",
"brand_name": "Glucophage",
"generic_name": "Metformin",
"dosage_form": "Tablet",
"strength": "500 mg",
"manufacturer": "Bristol-Myers Squibb"
}
],
"total_count": 1,
"query": "metformin"
} A representative response. Full schema and endpoint reference are in the developer docs.
Who uses it
- Telehealth and care-coordination tools — Provider-facing drug lookup with normalized brand/generic names, dosage forms, and FDA approval status.
- Medication-tracking and adherence apps — Clean drug-name resolution and ingredient data for patient-facing tools, with consistent identifiers across sources.
- Supplement-aware medication and wellness apps — Drug-supplement interaction checks and supplement profiles from NIH data for medication trackers and wellness tools.
- Drug-research and analytics teams — Consistent identifiers (RxCUI, NDC, brand and generic names) across openFDA and RxNorm in one query.
- LLM- and AI-grounded health-information assistants — Authoritative FDA reference data for retrieval-augmented generation, model grounding, and citation-aware answers.
For AI agents (MCP)
MedData runs as an MCP server, so AI agents and MCP clients can call it in a conversation. It works in Claude Desktop, Cursor, ChatGPT connectors, and LangChain or LangGraph.
Install it with uvx meddata-mcp, or connect through Smithery. The package is meddata-mcp on PyPI and io.github.anthesiallc/meddata in the MCP registry. The source is on GitHub.
Agents can onboard themselves. A POST to /api/v1/signup returns an API key in the response, with no email step.
Pricing
Simple monthly plans. Start free, upgrade when you outgrow it. Prices in USD; applicable taxes are calculated at checkout.
Need more than 100,000 calls a month, a higher rate limit, or custom terms? Contact us
Questions
What developers ask before integrating MedData. Don't see yours? Email us.
Is the data really free?
Yes. The Free tier is $0 and includes 250 API calls per month with no credit card required. Paid tiers exist for higher volume, starting at $29 per month for 5,000 calls. See pricing.
What sources does MedData aggregate?
openFDA (drug labels, the NDC directory, adverse events, and the drug-interaction sections of FDA labels), RxNorm from the National Library of Medicine (drug naming and RxCUI identifiers), and the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (supplement fact sheets and interactions).
How is this different from querying openFDA or RxNorm directly?
Those sources have separate schemas, identifier conventions, and edge cases. MedData unifies them behind one API, normalizes the data, and pre-joins identifiers, so a single request resolves an RxCUI to its NDC codes, brand names, dosage forms, and label details, instead of orchestrating several separate calls and reconciling the results.
Do I need a healthcare license to use the API?
No. The API serves publicly available reference data, not patient information. Customers are responsible for how they integrate the data into their own products and for any regulatory obligations in their jurisdiction. See the disclaimer above and our Terms of Service.
What are the rate limits?
Each plan has a monthly call cap (shown in the pricing table). Per-second rate limits are documented in the developer docs and sized for typical application use. If you need a higher burst limit or volume beyond Business, the Enterprise tier is custom.
Can I cache MedData responses?
Yes. Cache-Control headers are respected and you may cache responses to operate your application. You may not build or redistribute a substantively derivative dataset that competes with the API itself. See clause 5 of our Terms.
How fresh is the data?
Source datasets are mirrored on a schedule that matches each source's update cadence: openFDA refreshes weekly, RxNorm monthly, and the NIH supplement data periodically. Each response includes the source and a last-updated timestamp so you can reason about freshness in your own UI.
Is MedData HIPAA-compliant?
MedData processes public, non-PHI reference data only (drug labels, identifiers, supplement data) and never receives patient information. The API is not a HIPAA-covered entity. If you are integrating MedData into a HIPAA-regulated workflow on your end, evaluate your own compliance posture independently.
Can I use MedData with LLMs or RAG pipelines?
Yes, many customers do. The Terms explicitly permit programmatic access for grounding AI applications in authoritative drug information. Just attribute the underlying source (openFDA, RxNorm, NIH, etc.) where you display the data, as the API responses indicate.
How do I upgrade, downgrade, or cancel?
From the billing portal at meddata.anthesia.io, or by emailing support@anthesia.io. Refund terms are in our Refund & Cancellation Policy.
Get started
Building something in healthtech?
Create an account, grab an API key, and make your first call in minutes. The Free plan needs no card.
Billing & legal
The MedData API is operated by Anthesia LLC. Subscriptions are billed through Polar.sh, our merchant of record. Support: support@anthesia.io.
MedData is an Anthesia product.