India rolls out Drug Registry to standardize medicine data

New Delhi: The government on Monday launched Drug Registry, a centralized digital database of medicines to standardize drug information and reduce errors arising from inconsistent naming of medicines.

The move is significant for India's nearly $50-billion pharmaceutical market, where the same medicine is often recorded under different names or formats, creating inconsistencies in clinical decision-making.

The platform allows users to search and identify medications by their generic name, brand name, substance, or manufacturer. Built on standardized terminology and aligned with global standards, the Drug Registry ensures accuracy, transparency, and seamless data exchange across healthcare systems.

“Medicines are one of the most critical data elements in healthcare delivery. However, across healthcare systems in India, the same drug is often represented using different names and formats, leading to inconsistencies, duplication, data entry errors, and lack of interoperability,” the health ministry said. “This creates challenges in clinical decision-making, e-prescriptions, supply chain management, and continuity of care,” it added.

Launched by Union health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda, the registry has been developed by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) and the National Resource Centre for EHR Standards (NRCeS), Pune.

"Conceptualized under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), it serves as a single source of truth for medicines in India, enabling consistent identification, storage, exchange and usage of drug data across healthcare systems

The registry leverages international standards such as SNOMED CT to ensure interoperability and semantic consistency across platforms. It includes standardized drug codes covering generic clinical drugs, branded medicines, and substances.

“Currently, the Drug Registry comprises: 123,000+ branded drugs, 10,000+ generic drugs, 29,000+ substances,” the health ministry said.

According to the government, the platform is designed to integrate with Hospital Management Information Systems (HMIS), e-prescription platforms, doctor-facing applications, and ABDM-compliant digital health solutions.

“The registry connects healthcare providers, digital applications, and citizens to a verified and comprehensive drug database,” the statement added.

Nadda also unveiled four other digital health initiatives under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission: eSushrut@clinic, a hospital management system for small clinics; the Unified Health Interface (UHI) tfor patient-provider communication; Ayushman Sarathi, a PM-JAY WhatsApp chatbot for beneficiaries; and Aarogya Setu 2.0, rebranded as a personal health record gateway to accelerate adoption of India's digital health ecosystem.

“The Drug Registry will bring thousands of medications, many of which have multiple names due to different manufacturers, under one digital umbrella that can be accessed by various stakeholders. For instance, this will enable doctors to look up brand names, generic equivalents, ingredients and manufacturers. This will also reduce medical errors that occur due to many different medications having similar-sounding brand names,” said Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, former president at Indian Medical Association, Cochin chapter.