Find a drug's brand and generic names
Exactbiotech_drug_synonymsDeterministic and authoritative — the canonical answer for this input.
Return all known names for a drug concept — canonical name plus brand and generic names — essential for entity matching, since 'Tylenol', 'acetaminophen', 'paracetamol', and 'APAP' all map to one RxNorm concept. Accepts a name or RxCUI. RxNorm passthrough (cached); an outage or throttle gives a retryable error. Charges 2 cost_units; 1 when the query is empty (rejected locally before RxNorm is called); an unknown query_type is a request-shape error, rejected unbilled (INVALID_INPUT). Processing multiple inputs? Use `biotech_drug_synonyms_batch` to do up to 25 in one call.
Parameters
querystringrequiredThe drug name or RxCUI whose synonyms to return.
query_typestringoptionalHow to interpret the query: 'name' (default; a drug brand, generic, or ingredient name, approximate-matched) or 'rxcui' (an RxNorm concept id).
Call it
curl -X POST https://api.snipget.ai/v1/biotech/drug/synonyms \
-H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_..." \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query":"Tylenol"}'The Batch tab sends up to 1000 inputs in one call via /v1/biotech/drug/synonyms/batch.
FAQ
Why use this instead of asking the model for a drug's other names?
One drug can have many brand and generic names. 'Tylenol', 'acetaminophen', 'paracetamol', and 'APAP' are all the same thing. This returns every known name for that one concept from RxNorm's maintained data, so you can match records that spell it differently instead of guessing which names exist.
What does it not do?
It returns names for a single drug concept, not dosing, interactions, or safety advice. matchType is exact, so the names come straight from RxNorm and are the authoritative set, not a fuzzy guess.
What can I pass in?
A brand name, generic name, or ingredient name. You can also pass an RxNorm concept id by setting query_type to 'rxcui'.
What if the drug isn't found?
You get a result with confidence 0 and no synonyms, not an error. If the drug data service is briefly down you get a 503 so you can retry.
How is this different from drug lookup?
Lookup gives you the one canonical concept (its RxCUI and preferred name). Synonyms gives you the full list of every brand and generic name that maps to that concept.