I posted once about the drug pipeline database of http://www.chartsbank.com/PipelineList.aspx and what I found was really amazing, they actually have organized the whole database on the ATC codification. Codes make retrieval of related compounds easier by introducing a hierarchical scheme.
For example, if all products being investigated for cardiovascular applications are classified under codes beginning with the letter “C,” users do not need to key in the variety of terms that could be assigned by indexers to describe heart medications, such as “antiarrhythmics,” cardiostimulants,” “coronary vasodilators,” “antihypertensives,” etc.
In the lessons that follow, we will look at the therapeutic classification scheme used in each of the major pipeline databases.
