Help

Help finding medicines information on Medicines.ie.

1. How to browse

You can browse medicines.ie using three alphabetical A to Z lists.

“Medicines” - a list of medicines sorted by their brand (trade) name. They can be sorted A to Z, Z to A, by Company Name and also by Date Updated (date that the document was last uploaded on the website). The list can also be filtered by Date Updated. The display tool allows for columns showing additional information to be selected.

“Active Ingredients” - a list of medicines sorted by the name of the active ingredient (generic or chemical name).

“Companies” - a list of the pharmaceutical companies that publish information on medicines.ie .

2. How to search

The Home & Medicines search boxes will make search suggestions based on the text that you type in, which you can click on to search for the medicine or use for spelling help. Otherwise when you search for a term in the ‘Medicines’, ‘Active Ingredients’ or ‘Companies’ search, the search will look for a word beginning with the exact spelling that you have entered.

Medicines search results can be filtered by Date Updated, Legal Category, Black Inverted Triangle status, Company, Active Ingredients and Document types.

• The search results only include medicines and companies with information published on medicines.ie .
• If a medicine or pharmaceutical company is not listed, it is because the company has chosen not to publish this information on medicines.ie .

3. About document history

Dates that appear associated with documents and that are in the document history section on Medicines.ie refer to the last time that the electronic version was uploaded onto medicines.ie and have no regulatory significance. The changes may be technical updates such as improved electronic presentation or change in the company banner etc. Relevant regulatory dates are found in the documents themselves.

4. About SPC information

When a product is granted a marketing authorisation by a regulatory authority (e.g. HPRA) allowing it to be sold or supplied in Ireland, that authorisation contains a document known as the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC or SmPC), the wording of which has been agreed with the regulatory authority as part of the regulatory approval process. The SPC is designed to assist doctors and pharmacists in prescribing and supplying the product and describes what is in the product, what it’s used for, the dose, side effects, when not to use it, etc.