Oral Solid Medication Metadata from FDA Labeling

Pillbox contains metadata for oral solid dosage form medications derived from FDA drug labeling. The dataset includes physical characteristics, ingredients, National Drug Codes, and marketing firm information. It was archived by the National Library of Medicine and is no longer updated after January 28, 2021.

Use Cases

• Identify pills using physical characteristics like splshape, splcolor, and splimprint for computer vision applications.
• Link drug products to standardized codes by mapping ndc9 and ndc_labeler_code to RxNorm concepts via rxtty.
• Analyze drug formulation trends by examining active and inactive ingredients listed in the metadata fields.
• Filter medications by regulatory status using columns like dea_schedule_code and approval_code.
• Retrieve associated product images for visual reference using the splimage and has_image fields.

Strengths

• Metadata derived from authoritative FDA drug labeling sources.
• Includes multiple identifiers for cross-referencing, such as NDC codes and RxNorm types.

Limitations

• Dataset is archived and no longer updated, potentially missing newer drugs.
• Sample size and total row count are unknown, limiting reproducibility assessment.
• Potential for stale or incomplete records as indicated by the stale column.

Provenance

Source

National Library of Medicine (datadiscovery.nlm.nih.gov), derived from FDA drug labeling.

Collection Method

Derived from regulatory drug labeling documents and linked to RxNorm.

Time Range

Historical coverage up to archival in 2021.

Freshness

Archived; final update was in 2021.

Geography

United States (FDA-regulated products).