About
About RxMap
A bulk NDC-to-RxCUI crosswalk tool for researchers, analysts, and students working with pharmaceutical and clinical data.
What is RxMap?
RxMap is a web-based tool that converts National Drug Code (NDC) identifiers to standardized RxNorm drug data in bulk. You upload a CSV, Excel, or TSV file containing a column of NDC codes. RxMap queries the NIH National Library of Medicine RxNorm API for each code and returns your file enriched with structured drug identifiers — ready to analyze in Excel, Stata, SAS, or R.
The problem it solves: NDC codes are too specific to aggregate. The same drug from two different manufacturers carries two different NDC codes, and different package sizes of the same product are treated as unrelated. RxNorm, by contrast, normalizes across manufacturers and package sizes, making it possible to count all prescriptions of Metformin — regardless of who made it or how it was packaged — in a single query.
What data does RxMap return?
For each NDC in your file, RxMap adds the following columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| rxcui | Primary RxNorm Concept Unique Identifier |
| IN | Ingredient — active pharmaceutical ingredient |
| PIN | Precise Ingredient — exact salt or ester form |
| SCD | Semantic Clinical Drug — Ingredient + Strength + Dose Form |
| GPCK | Generic Pack with quantity |
| SBD | Semantic Branded Drug — brand name + Ingredient + Dose Form |
| BPCK | Branded Pack with quantity |
| Strength | Structured strength field from RxNorm RxTerms |
| Dose_Form | Standardized dose form from RxNorm RxTerms |
| ATC / ATCPROD / VA | Drug class identifiers from RxClass (ATC, VA pharmacologic class) |
Who uses RxMap?
Health services researchers (HSR) and academic researchers
Working with MEPS, Medicare Part D, Medicaid SDUD, NHANES, SEER-Medicare, or VA/DoD pharmacy data. These datasets ship with NDC codes; RxMap converts them to drug-level identifiers for study.
Graduate students and fellows
Analyzing publicly available medication data for a thesis, dissertation, or course project — without a data engineering team.
Health economists and pharmacoeconomists
Linking NDC-level claims to drug cost references like NADAC (National Average Drug Acquisition Cost), 340B ceiling prices, or CMS Part D drug spending data. RxCUI is the standard join key between NDC claims and drug cost databases.
Managed care and PBM analysts
Formulary design, step therapy analysis, and generic substitution reporting — all of which start with NDC codes from claims systems.
Public health researchers
Working with state PDMP (Prescription Drug Monitoring Program) data to classify opioids, benzodiazepines, stimulants, and other controlled substances by drug class.
Data source and methodology
All drug data returned by RxMap is sourced from the NIH National Library of Medicine RxNorm API. RxNorm is a standardized nomenclature for clinical drugs maintained by the NLM as part of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). It is the authoritative drug identifier used by the FDA, CMS, ONC, and major EHR standards (HL7 FHIR, CDA).
Drug class data (ATC codes, VA pharmacologic classes) is sourced from the NLM RxClass API.
RxMap is not affiliated with NIH, FDA, or NLM. It is an independent tool that uses the publicly available RxNorm REST API.
Operated by
Medication Data Science Inc
Medication Data Science Inc builds tools for researchers and analysts working with pharmaceutical and clinical data. RxMap was created to lower the technical barrier to working with NDC data in public health and health services research.
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