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Gene therapy

As we now have a few gene therapies approved, how should this box be appropriately used? It's not a drug in the classic sense, and there are some parameters that could probably be added if "gene therapy" was a defined type. Natureium (talk) 16:40, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

We can build this, of course. I like to hear from others. Is it a drug? A therapy? Experimental only? -DePiep (talk) 00:12, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

The technology may be experimental, but some are not "experimental drugs", because they've been approved by the FDA (voretigene neparvovec and tisagenlecleucel). Natureium (talk) 20:58, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Over the next decade or two, I'd expect the number of FDA-approved gene therapies to markedly increase relative to the current number, so it's probably worth adding functionality for this class of therapeutics in the drugbox. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢)

I think they are close enough to have a version of this template used for them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:43, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

New parameters needed for this? New section header even maybe? -DePiep (talk) 16:24, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

New section and new parameters. Parameters would probably need to specify the gene(s) that are targeted by the therapy, the therapy transfer method (viral transduction vs transfection) and the specific type of transduction (i.e., the viral vector that is employed – e.g., the adeno-associated viral vector or lentiviral vector) or transfection method (I'm not sure what transfection methods are used clinically; however, I've read about someone "self-administering" an experimental non-clinical gene therapy using electroporation while a physician was watching – i.e., the individual electrocuted himself). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:16, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Then do make a sketch please (LH labels, RH data examples, section header). However. I stil am in doubt on why a therapy should have a drugbox. There is not an {{Infobox therapy}}? -DePiep (talk) 01:25, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Ah, found {{Infobox medical intervention}}. So why not expand that one for gene therapy? -DePiep (talk) 01:28, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Agree with User:DePiep suggestion as that being a better place. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:44, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Why? A gene therapy – "the therapeutic delivery of nucleic acid into a patient's cells as a drug to treat disease." – is a drug. The only difference between a gene therapy and other common types of pharmaceuticals is that a gene therapy is not a small molecule drug; rather, a specific gene therapy is just genetic material (i.e., a relatively large molecule) coupled with a specific delivery vector to facilitate administration/absorption; this is analogous to a drug like amphotericin B being encased in solid lipid nanoparticles to enhance oral bioavailability – that's an example of a small molecule drug coupled to a specific delivery vector. Moreover, gene therapies are often referred to as drugs because they act like drugs (i.e., they satisfy the strictest definitions of a drug and a pharmaceutical drug, hence why all gene therapies are classified as biopharmaceutical drugs) and go through the USFDA drug approval process. The USFDA also requires that drug prescribing information be published for all gene therapies, e.g., this is the Rx info for the gene therapy that was mentioned above, voretigene neparvovec (trade name: Luxturna): [2]. As is evident from this drug's prescribing information, a number of existing drugbox fields are applicable to a gene therapy; so, why should we duplicate a large number of existing drugbox parameters in another template AND add a small number of additional required parameters relevant only to gene therapies in that template rather than to just add the small set of parameters to the drugbox in order to enable it to provide the relevant data for gene therapy pharmaceuticals?

FWIW, a gene therapy should not be put into an infobox that cover a "therapy" instead of the drugbox simply because the word therapy is included in the name in "gene therapy". That simply isn't a valid/sound argument. If it were, template:infobox drug should be merged into whatever infobox gene therapies are covered in because all pharmaceutical drugs are a form of pharmacotherapy. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 22:32, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like the wording "gene therapy" is not correct then. Isn't this confusing (mixing up) therapy and drug? Like "viral therapy" for vaccin. Or "radioactive therapy" for radioactive drug treatment. Anyway, any boilerplate setup still wellcome (new params, data examples, etc.). -DePiep (talk) 22:49, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

What about chemotherapy? Clearly a drug, not a procedure. Natureium (talk) 17:16, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

References

References

New LHS/RHS fields relevant to a gene therapy

• LHS: "Gene delivery method"
  • RHS: this should have only two possible outputs: use either the pair "viral" and "non-viral" or the pair "Viral transduction" and "Transfection" as possible outputs for the RHS field.

    Note on RHS: Both of these pairs are equivalent in meaning, so "viral", "viral transduction", "non-viral", and "transfection" would be acceptable inputs for whatever is used for the parameter output (in other words, you could code this so that one of the output pairs is produced for either of the relevant inputs. I.e., if you decide to use the pair "Viral transduction" and "Transfection" as outputs, then you would have the following input–output maps:

    Input: viral → Output: Viral transduction

    Input: viral transduction → Output: Viral transduction

    Input: non-viral → Output: Transfection

    Input: transfection → Output: Transfection

• LHS: Delivery vector

  Note on LHS: if "viral transduction" or "viral" is specified as the input in the preceding parameter, then this could also be listed/linked as "Viral vector". If you wanted to do something similar for transfection vectors when "transfection" or "non-viral" is specified as the input in the preceding parameter, then you could modify the piped link on "Delivery vector", which is pipe-linked to the Vectors in gene therapy article, to target the section Vectors in gene therapy#Non-viral methods.

  • RHS: User-specified value

    Note on RHS: There are probably too many possible viral transduction and transfection vectors to exhaustively list. Vectors in gene therapy covers only some of these. Moreover, new gene delivery vectors are developed on a fairly regular basis; so, if the output values were restricted to a pre-defined set of possible values, keeping that list of outputs up-to-date would just create an unnecessary workload/task for template editors.

• LHS: Gene target
  • RHS: User-specified value

    Note on RHS: There are around 20,000 protein-coding human genes, although likely only a very tiny fraction of those have the capacity to cause disease in isolation – the disease-causing genes in that tiny minority are the perfect/ideal candidates for gene therapies.

Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:18, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Edit: since gene therapies are typically only designed as a treatment for exactly one medical condition, you could also consider adding "Indication" as an LHS field and a user-specified medical condition as an RHS field for that parameter. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:24, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, all of these parameters are applicable to the "Clinical data" heading. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:15, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

@Boghog and Jytdog: Do either of you have any comments/thoughts on these parameter or suggestions for other additions? Both of you are are familiar with gene therapy-related concepts, so I figured I'd ping you. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:33, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

• holy cow gene therapy products are drugs, just like mAbs are. You have to submit an IND to start testing them in which you have to discuss tox and CMC, and if you want to market you have to submit a BLA. They are extremely well-defined pharmaceuticals.

A lot of popular media called Tisagenlecleucel a gene therapy drug but it really isn't - it is Adoptive cell transfer where you take a person's cells, genetically engineer them (which is gene-therapy-like), then give them back. Each person gets their own "batch", manufactured just for them. These kinds of therapies (and they are therapies as they are individualized) do need to be treated differently.

This is really, really different from Voretigene neparvovec where the product (a viral vector) is manufactured and sold, just like a mAb or small molecule. We can use the regular drug-box for these, if we add a few parameters. More on this below. Jytdog (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

A viral vector is really just a delivery vehicle for genetic material, which is the component of a gene therapy which acts as a drug following delivery into a cell. As described in the section above, an analogy for a viral vector and the genetic material that it carries is solid lipid nanoparticles (analogous to the viral vector) serving as a delivery vehicle for amphotericin B (analogous to the genetic material carried by the vector). Transfection doesn't involve the use of a viral vector as a delivery vehicle, but it does still involve the delivery of genetic material (i.e., the actual "drug" in a gene therapy); the difference is that it's delivered via a non-viral method. Like you said, adoptive cell transfer is a distinct concept from gene therapy or even a drug; it's analogous to an organ transplant on a cellular level, so we wouldn't include those therapies in a drugbox. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:50, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Will make a demo soon. Drug articles using these new dedicated parameters will be categorised.

Two questions: should we make this gene therapy drugs a new |type=, next to compound, mab, vacc, comb? Best is: only when absolutely needed (hard exclusion check is needed of other parameters). If I understand this well, parameter usage needs editors who know about this, so will not use senseless parameters (plus this being wiki, an next editor will improve such situations).

Second question: sure this is under "Clinical data"? We should take care to not group everything under this. Does clinical use need to know say vector mechanism and target gene ID at all? In my lay mind, a top-header like "Gene therapy data" looks more applicable. -DePiep (talk) 11:05, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

@DePiep: Yes, I think it's probably worth including a new |type= for gene therapies since they're an entirely different class of pharmaceutical relative to a compound/mab/vaccine/combo; given that we're also creating a specialized set of parameters for this class of therapeutics, it's appropriate to create a new |type= for that reason as well. W.r.t. the question about clinical data, we could create a new section heading for this data if you'd prefer. I only stated that it should go under clinical data because that was the most relevant existing drugbox heading for that data. IMO, there's no reason that we shouldn't create a new heading for that data if you think that would be a better approach. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:04, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

The FDA definition of gene therapy is somewhat broader that what has been outline above (see What is Gene Therapy?) and includes bacterial vectors. Gene therapy products are defined by the FDA as biologics (i.e., biopharmaceuticals), hence they could reasonably be included in the drugbox. It is unclear why it is necessary to distinguish inputs from outputs. The inputs clearly differ, but unless I am missing something, the output would be identical (an edited gene). I assume that LHS means "left hand side" (parameter name) and RHS means "right hand side" (parameter value). Correct? The standard pharmacokinetic parameters for bare DNA can be measured. However it is not clear that pharmacokinetics for viral or bacterial vectors is even relevant as both have the potential to replicate after administration! (although I guess replication deficient vectors are preferred). Boghog (talk) 13:53, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

OK, after reading the template documentation, I now understand what input/output refers to. To make things more explicit, the following are suggested parameters for Voretigene neparvovec:

| type              = gene_therapy
| gene_therapy_type = viral_vector
| viral_vector      = adenovirus serotype 2
| delivery_method   = 
| gene              = [[RPE65]]

gene_therapy_type defines one of the following types of gene delivery/editing systems:

gene_therapy_type	output	comment
Viral vector	Viral vector
Bacterial vector	Bacterial vector
naked DNA	Naked DNA
DNA plasmid	DNA plasmid
CRISPR	CRISPR
zinc finger nucleases	Zinc finger nucleases	example: SB-913
siRNA	siRNA	not strictly gene therapy, but closely related

delivery_method defines one of the following types of gene delivery systems:

delivery_method	output
Lipofection	Lipofection

These are my initial thoughts. Boghog (talk) 21:45, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

@Boghog: Thanks for your response! Most of my knowledge of gene therapy pertains to viral vector-based gene therapies; since you're more knowledgeable of this subject area as a whole than I am, I appreciate your feedback. I have a question about your revised set of parameters: is "delivery_method" only relevant to transfection-based therapies? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:19, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

@DePiep: I would suggest using Boghog's proposed parameter set in the drugbox/demo instead of mine. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:19, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Seppi. I am not really that familiar with this area either, but have done some quick reading. In answer to your question, I think "delivery_method" applies only to non-viral transfections. Viral vectors have a built-in delivery method (viral capsid fusion, endocytosis, or penetration into cell membrane). Also it is important to point out that "delivery_method" should not be confused with "routes_of_administration". By definition, all therapies, regardless of type, have "routes_of_administration". I thought a bit more about this, and for completeness, I think it will be necessary to also specify two additional parameters, "nucleic_acid_type" and "editing_method". Below is an outline of the proposed parameters (based in part on Gene Therapy Clinical Trials Database). Boghog (talk) 11:57, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Proposed drugbox parameters for gene therapy (revised, Jan 1st)

• |type=gene_therapy (note: add new parameter value to an already existing parameter)
  • |gt_vector=Viral vector (adenovirus, retrovirus, ...), Bacterial vector (e. coli, ...)
  • |gt_nucleic_acid_type=naked DNA, DNA plasmid, siRNA, ...
  • |gt_editing_method=CRISPR, TALEN, Zinc finger nucleases, ...
  • |gt_delivery_method=Lipofection, Electroporation, Hydroporation, ...

Boghog (talk) 11:57, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Existing drugbox fields for a small molecule drug that are relevant/irrelevant to a gene therapy

Based upon the existing fields in amphetamine's drugbox and this Rx info:

• Clinical data: this entire section is applicable to gene therapies with exception for the dependence/addiction liability parameter. However, hard-coding an exclusion for that parameter probably isn't necessary since most people won't fill that in anyway.
• Legal status: this entire section is applicable to gene therapies.
• Pharmacokinetic data: "Bioavailability", "Protein binding", "Metabolism", "Metabolites", and "Biological half-life" aren't really relevant to gene therapies. "Onset of action", "Duration of action", and "Excretion" are applicable though. I don't think any new pharmacokinetic parameters are absolutely necessary for gene therapies, although you could consider adding "Biodistribution" (analogous to drug distribution) which would state the tissues that the gene therapy has been found to affect in clinical populations; the biodistribution of a gene therapy vector corresponds to how well-targeted a gene therapy is; e.g., see the entry for "Cell type specificity" listed under Viral vector#Key properties of a viral vector.
• Identifiers: I'm not 100% positive that all of these identifiers are irrelevant to gene therapies, although I'm certain that most of these identifier parameters aren't applicable since gene therapies wouldn't be classified in most of the chemical databases. KEGG, IUPHAR, and DrugBank might be the exceptions.
• Chemical and physical data: not relevant at all Edit: Only relevant for some gene therapies.

Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:08, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I disagree about PK, bioavailability, metabolism, metabolites, etc. Please see the label for the Luxtura (true) gene therapy product. yes additional fields for the vector type (AAV, Ad, lenti, etc), components, including payload (which could code for a gene being replaced, or something to knock down a gene, or something to edit a gene), promoters, etc) would be great. Jytdog (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

The body doesn't really "metabolize" a viral vector (that would be analogous to the body metabolizing a virus into something else – instead, the body either just attacks and kills or ignores viruses; viral vectors are normally engineered so that they are largely or entirely ignored by the immune system, otherwise they trigger an immune response) or the delivered genetic material like a typical small molecule drug in the sense that the body doesn't produce metabolites from either. The genetic material delivered by a viral vector or via a transfection method is processed within the cell and translated into a viable protein, but that's a little different than what's normally meant to be indicated in those drugbox fields. The content that you could put into that metabolism field about the translated protein is also sort of redundant with input for the new "Gene target" parameter proposed above; this is because we normally cover genes and gene products (e.g., proteins) in the same article. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:21, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

W.r.t. bioavailability, the term "efficiency" is typically used to describe how well a cell uptakes and utilizes/translates the delivered genetic material. I'm not sure whether a therapy's efficiency is more relevant to the pharmacodynamics or the pharmacokinetics of the gene therapy though; that term describes a phenomenon that involves both an action by the therapy on the body (pharmacodynamics) and an action by the body on the therapy (pharmacokinetics). Neither the word "bioavailability" nor "efficiency" are included in that prescribing information though, so that's probably not something that's going to be easy to find+list in a drugbox. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:41, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

See also my "Two questions" I just wrote above (11.05). For this here: is there any check or action required by the template code wrt parameters? As far as I can follow this, this is expert editor's knowledge and so will be applied when editing the drugbox. Documentation will have an extra section. -DePiep (talk) 11:13, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with DePiep that decisions on which parameters to use should probably be made a case-by-case basis and rely on expert editor's knowledge . For example Pharmacokinetic data may appropriate to include for naked DNA/plasmids, but less likely to be appropriate for viral vectors. Similarily, Chemical and physical data would not be relevant for a viral vector, but may be appropriate for a naked DNA/plasmids. There are biopolymer drugs such as insulin (medication) with specific molecular weights which are listed in drugboxes. This should also be possible for naked DNA/plasmids. Boghog (talk) 20:03, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

@Boghog:: The drugbox currently has 8 parameters that can be displayed under the pharmacokinetics heading: |bioavailability=, |protein_bound=, |metabolism=, |metabolites=, |onset=, |elimination_half-life=, |duration_of_action=, and |excretion=. I stated above that the pharmacokinetic parameters |onset=, |duration_of_action=, and |excretion= are relevant to all gene therapies (for fairly obvious reasons: all therapies have an onset/duration of action and a pharmacotherapeutic agent either is excreted or it isn't – the means of excretion or lack thereof should be specified either way), but I figured the following 5 were not: |bioavailability=, |protein_bound=, |metabolism=, |metabolites=, and |elimination_half-life=. Which of those 5 parameters are relevant or likely relevant to non-viral methods? I suppose there's no harm in leaving all of the pharmacokinetic parameters as allowed inputs when |type=gene therapy is specified if it's not clear which ones are relevant at the moment. Also, you made a good point about including chemical and physical data. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:51, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Seppi333. As you suggest, some of the pharmacokinetics parameters are probably more relevant than others to gene therapy. Again, this may vary by type of therapy, hence I think it would be OK for the time being not to add any restrictions and leave it to expert editors to decide on a case-by-case basis. We might want to revisit this in future as we run into more examples. Boghog (talk) 17:25, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

@DePiep:: W.r.t. a parameter check, I don't think that will be necessary given Boghog's reply about non-viral therapies. The only section of the drugbox that I thought shouldn't be displayed for gene therapies was chemical/physical properties; but, per Boghog's reply, that clearly is relevant for certain non-viral therapies. Given that the majority of the parameters in the current drugbox for a small molecule are relevant for at least one sub-class of gene therapy, hard-coding an exclusion for certain parameters or parameter sets when |type=gene therapy is specified doesn't seem prudent at the moment. The only parameter that I know for certain is unequivocally irrelevant to all gene therapies is |addiction_liability=. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:51, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Very useful all of this. Will happen, but I need a few more days off, interesting RL issues :-) -DePiep (talk) 13:56, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@DePiep: Thanks. Hope all is well with you off-wiki. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 20:49, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Proposal (live demo)

@Natureium, Seppi333, Doc James, Jytdog, and Boghog:

This is my resulting proposal to add section Gene therapy to {{Infobox drug}}. It is a live demo in this talkpage, to be edited (to speed up the process)! - DePiep (talk) 11:52, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Voretigene neparvovec

{{Infobox drug}}
Demo: gene therapy OUTDATED
Gene therapy
gt target name	[gt target name]
Vector	adenovirus serotype 2
Nucleic acid type	viral vector
Editing method	RPE65
Delivery method	[not applicable here]

| gt_target_gene       = [gt target name]
| gt_vector            = adenovirus serotype 2
| gt_nucleic_acid_type = viral vector
| gt_editing_method    = [[RPE65]]
| gt_delivery_method   = [not applicable here]

Parameters

are those by Boghog (above), 11:57 1 January 2018 [3]:

• | gt target name =
• |gt_vector = Viral vector (adenovirus, retrovirus, ...), Bacterial vector (e. coli, ...)
• |gt_nucleic_acid_type = naked DNA, DNA plasmid, siRNA, ...
• |gt_editing_method = CRISPR, TALEN, Zinc finger nucleases, ...
• |gt_delivery_method = Lipofection, Electroporation, Hydroporation, ...

| gt target name       =
| gt_vector            = 
| gt_nucleic_acid_type = 
| gt_editing_method    = 
| gt_delivery_method   = 

Notes

• It's OK to edit the infobox right on this talkpage! I don't expect chaos.
• Parameter |type= is not used. Section will show when any |gt_...= has input.
• Parameter input is free text. No edits, no list lookups, no wikilinks [[ ]] added etc.
• Tracking: article will be categorised in Category:Drugs that are a gene therapy (14) (new)
• Todo: please check & improve LHS labels.
• When things are stable here, I'll add the set to sandbox & go live.

- DePiep (talk) 11:52, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:49, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Implemented

 Done. See Voretigene neparvovec. - DePiep (talk) 15:30, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks DePiep for implementing this. I apologize for not paying attention to your demo, but the implementation needs to be tweaked. First and foremost, RPE65 is not an editing method, rather it is the gene that is being edited. What is really needed is a new parameter called |gt_target_gene= and this should be the first displayed link under gene therapy. Sorry for not specifying this earlier. In addition, when using viral vectors, |gt_editing_method= and |gt_delivery_method= are implicit and do not need to be defined. These later parameters should be appropiate for CRISPR, TALEN, Zinc finger nucleases, but not for viral vectors.

It also looks like we need an article on Editing method to link to. One that comes close is Genome editing. Also Nucleic acid type redirecting to Virus classification is also not what I had in mind. A redirect to Nucleic acid would be more appropriate with allowed parameter values |gt_nucleic_acid_type=DNA or RNA. Again, my apologizes for not specifying all of this earlier and paying attention to your demo. Boghog (talk) 19:03, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done added |gt_target_gene= as suggested. See testcases11.

re Boghog: all fine, we are improving drugbox.

About the labels (lefthand side links & texts): please improve when stable (like: non-controversial), in Template:Infobox drug right away. The Gene therapy ones are near searchword "header20".

I do not understand a single word of the "viral vectors / gt_editing_method" part (not my domain). AFAI am concerned, the input is anytext (shows unedited), so you can enter text & links &tc. If there is "parameter logic" behind this, please clarify here. (Could be: relations between gt parameters, LH-link changes different when input is Y not X, etc.).

I'm sorry Natureium that this took four months. I owe you a swift edit sometime somewhere! - DePiep (talk) 20:12, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Intreresting pages: Category:Drugs that are a gene therapy (14), Category:Gene therapy (36)

Thanks for adding |gt_target_gene= to the template examples. I have also added it to the sandbox and tweaked the wikilinks in the sandbox as discussed above. The logic of how the parameters are inter-related is as follows:

• |gt_target_gene= – mandatory for all types of gene therapy
• |gt_vector= – if specified, then the remainder of the gt parameters should be removed or left blank

There are currently no drugs on the market or even in the clinic that would use the other parameters, but there soon may be:

CTX001 CRISPR/Cas9 Clinical Trial. For CTX001, based on this abstract, the values of the remainder of the gt parameters would be |gt_target_gene=Gamma globulin, |gt_editing_method=CRISPR, |gt_nucleic_acid_type=naked DNA. They have not as yet disclosed the |gt_delivery_method=. Boghog (talk) 06:51, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I suggest to leave this logic to the editor, no need to build in complicated checks & warnings & documentation. Editors who know about this topic can simply improve the article. BTW if the labeltext is to be "Target gene" we better change the name into |gt_target_gene= to prevent confusion. -DePiep (talk) 08:31, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• Boghog. Is current sandbox to be used (no redlink, your improved gt links)? See testcases11. If you're fine with it, we could put it live. - DePiep (talk) 14:29, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done - DePiep (talk) 23:14, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Half-life

At present the infobox contains the following label and parameter:

 | label76 = Biological half-life
 |  data76 = {{{elimination_half-life|}}}

However, as pointed out by D A Patriarche at User talk:D A Patriarche #question about half-life, the quantities representing the time for half of the substance to be eliminated and the time for the substance to lose one half of its initial effectiveness may be different values. Both of these are apparently possible meanings for "Biological half-life", according to the differing definitions found in our article and at dictionary.com. Our article also distinguishes between biological half-life and plasma half-life. The question therefore, is whether the present label is unambiguously the best, or whether it ought to be renamed to Elimination half-life or something else. It also raises the question of whether the values in our current infoboxes represent only the elimination half-life, or whether some are other values. There exists the possibility, if so, of adding another parameter to cope with two different quantities. What are others' thoughts? --RexxS (talk) 13:16, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

perhaps Elimination half-life[4]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

"Elimination half-life" removes the ambiguity. Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:44, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, "elimination half-life" would be appropriate for that field in most cases where a drugbox is used, but not all cases. When I first started writing this reply, I was in full support of renaming that field. I actually was about to change the label field (i.e., the "Biological half-life" text in the left column for that parameter) to "Elimination half-life"; however, after quickly checking through Biological half-life, I realized that this term is more general and there are instances of articles with a drugbox where renaming this to "Elimination half-life" would not make sense for the current input. This includes any article on a compound that is produced endogenously, administered exogenously as either a drug or supplement, and for which the endogenous and exogenous half-lives differ due to compartmentalization of the metabolizing enzymes. A specific example is phenethylamine, which lists an endogenous and exogenous half-life in the drugbox's biological half-life parameter. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:18, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

@Boghog: What do you think? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 08:11, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Stick with your initial instinct. The vast majority of values stored in |elimination_half-life= are in fact the standard elimination half-lifes. The only problem is the discrepancy between the label and parameter name and can be fixed by changing the label. Special cases such as endogenous vs. exogenous, can be specified as is currently done in phenethylamine. Boghog (talk) 11:16, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

K, I've changed the label accordingly. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢)

French "Legal statut" needed

Classification of drugs by category like, OTC, "prescription only" and "narcotic list I,II,III,IV" is needed.

Official sources are http://www.ircp.anmv.anses.fr/ for drugs and https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000533085&dateTexte=20180620 for narcotics.

Angely (talk) 14:22, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

@Angely: Sounds reasonable. That is for France then (jurisdiction). Would add |legal_FR=, |legal_FR_comment=. We need this:

1. Wikipedia article about this (lefthand link).
2. Complete list of possible status-es + their wikilink. The wikilink could be to the article (-section). Is OTC, "prescription only", "narcotic list I,II,III,IV" complete?
3. Short descriptions with each of the codes

See Template:Infobox_drug/legal_status/sandbox#By_country_or_organisation for existing examples.

Can you give some examples in the French Wikipedia? fr:Héroïne does not help in this. - DePiep (talk) 12:23, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Approval status

Hi, Can we add drug approval, withdrawal or even banned status per country or authority. Can we add this to Wikidata?

Some drugs are approved by US-FDA, UK-MHRA, EMEA, TGA or any local authority but are not approved by others. --محمود (talk) 23:33, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

That would mean a long list of local approvals. See legal status at the moment. Somehow I think that is not appropriate for a WP:INFOBOX. However, we could make a template to be used in a section (article body text).

Another, related idea: add a single parameter |market_status=. Can have "withdrawn", "test phase", etc. but better be empty when available (marketed), as a default. -DePiep (talk) 16:52, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Vaccines

Some vaccines such as hepatitis A vaccine come in both "attenuated and inactivated" types. How do we get this in the infobox? Just comes up as a "?" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:03, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Doc James. |vaccine_type= is supposed to be from a limited list: see doc. Do you want "attenuated and inactivated" to be added? Or should it allow free text? - DePiep (talk) 16:56, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

User:DePiep am wanting the option to include more than one type. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:35, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 20 August 2018

Please replace all code from {{Infobox drug}} with all code form {{Infobox drug/sandbox}} (= put sandbox into live). Change: |vaccine_type= input can now be free text too. Per edit request #Vaccine (above). DePiep (talk) 19:11, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done $\color {blue}\chi$_chi (talk) 18:53, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Doc James: OK now in hepatitis A vaccine. -DePiep (talk) 20:36, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Looking much better. Wondering if we can link the terms and add "or" such as "Attenuated or inactivated" User:DePiep? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:59, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Simple: if the input is in the list (see doc), it shows the pre-formatted (wikilinked) result. If not in the list, as with hepatitis A vaccine, it shows the text unedited (one one should add wikilinks in the input). Now since you wanted the option to include more than one type, that is too much variants to put in the pre-formatted list. BTW, your example here "Attenuated or inactivated" link to two DAB pages :-( . - DePiep (talk) 16:47, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Pharmacokinetics data: Antibiotic resistance and Medication Tolerance

Information in the Pharmacokinetics data section needs to be improved to support specific data pertaining to the following:

• Antibiotic resistance

• Medication Tolerance

Assistance would be very appreciated!

Twillisjr (talk) 21:30, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Any support for this?

Antibiotic resistance, Medication Tolerance

-DePiep (talk) 09:16, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

In mathematical acronym format (if possible) for those familiar in that specialty. Not half-life, estimation of effectiveness on the human body for total lifespan of drug usage. Twillisjr (talk) 16:30, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand this last post. IS it about input treatment?

Please give the link for Medication Tolerance. Is it Cross-tolerance?

Any prescription for these parameter input and how it is shown? No fixed unit or so? We can allow free text.

See Template:Infobox drug/testcases10. Where should the new ones be, in the order? -DePiep (talk) 17:30, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

DePiep: There are different types of “resistance” such as microbial. I believe resistance may be a good term, but it may not cover all (is my concern). Thoughts? Twillisjr (talk) 22:46, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Other notes:

Ex;

Pharmacokinetics data (subsection):

Flu Shot: ’’’XYZ’’’ = Seasonal

AIDS Retroviral Therapy Sample: ‘’’XYZ’’’ = 2 Years

XYZ represents lifespan of drug effectiveness on the afflicted human body. Twillisjr (talk) 21:40, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand. As long as this proposal is not explained (not even to insiders), we cannot make it into a true data option. - DePiep (talk) 03:13, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Are you proposing that we add the typical duration for which a medication is effective for an infectious disease? I think this would be best dealt with in prose format. The duration before someone develops resistance to an antibiotic on average depends on many things and thus is not suitable for an infobox / reduction to a single number. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:39, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Citation for automatically calculated molecular weights

When the drugbox (and chembox) are given a chemical formula using certain fields, the template automatically calculates the molecular weight. An editor has raised a concern that this needs to have citation ("automated calculations and other such nonsense is not an acceptable alternative to a reliable source presented cleanly in the infobox" and "I'd argue we very much do need to cite MW for a compound - seen MW being wrong for too long, far too often now."). While I agree there is lots of bogus scientific data on the internet, I disagree that basic math needs to be cited and {{Chem molar mass}} actually does cite the molar masses used for the math. Any thoughts on having the infobox generate a footnote-ref with a link ("Calculated from chemical formula using the element molar masses referenced at Template:Chem molar mass/doc") or such?

@Nick: who raised this issue regarding aspirin. DMacks (talk) 15:22, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

• Quality and relyability (and so sourcing) of an MW at enwiki is an old issue we still do not have right.

Whether or not having to reference a MW: WP:CHALLENGE says: "Attribute all quotations and any material whose verifiability is challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." IMO, this could apply both to a published value, and to a wiki-calculated value. I dare saying that all MW's are disputable, because doubt can arise from

1. Atomic weights used
2. Calculation method used
3. Compound formula used (added late for completeness - DePiep (talk) 07:29, 23 September 2018 (UTC))
4. or source used for literal copying a value.

Standard atomic weight, s.a.w., is defined & published by CIAAW . For example Wikidata used PubChem as source, introducing a wrong value [5]. IOW, even a source like PubChem has their basic stuff wrong. Then, the calculation method should be mathematically correct. Uncertainties must be handled correctly (IUPAC has publications on this). Our {{Chem molar mass}} does not.

Basically, every wiki-calculation must have a reference in-article ("AW by CIAAW, calculation as prescribed by IUPAC/math method xyz"). Every source (like PubChem) must have these references too, to prove that they do the maths right. (PubChem does not qualify). This is why I basically challenge every MW published on enwiki.

We need: 1. a correct MW-calculating module, and 2. a habit of checking & referencing MW for correctness / source reliability. -DePiep (talk) 15:56, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

I disagree fundamentally that a MW calculation is basic maths for everybody, which means any errors that enter the article for whatever reason are not easily detected by the casual reader, and on that basis I would argue a source is needed. I also dislike not having a source that any editor (even those of us that can do MW calculations in seconds) can click through and verify, because, as we know, pages can have incorrect information for whatever reason - be it vandalism, using an incorrect source or accidentally changing something whilst editing. I accept (begrudgingly) that the infobox code will calculate a MW correctly BUT it is entirely dependent on the formula being correct. If we take the Aspirin article, the MW of 180.16g is entirely dependent on the formula of C9H8O4 being correct (it is, of course). If we take more complex and particularly niche compounds, they could be changed and few people would notice. The reason I raise this issue and why I reverted the removal of the source is because I found out last month that Leu-enkephalin has had an incorrect MW since the day the article was created 11 years ago. Have a look at how often "555.62268" is quoted as the MW for Leu-enk and count how many sites are quoting the Wikipedia data. I really don't want that sort of issue being replicated because of some sort of editing problem with the article (or indeed the infobox code). I was thinking of a compromise, and I wonder if we could use the infobox to calculate the MW, for consistency etc, but to provide a source also even if it's marginally different (180.158g in the CRC v 180.16g as calculated in the infobox). Nick (talk) 17:04, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

That Leu-enk is a great example of how easy it is to mis-read a source and then have it treated as "fact" for further spread once it's in wikipedia. Unfortunately, you have confused exact mass (as identified in the ref you added) with molar mass (the tag and meaning used in infoboxes)...although they are numerically close, they have quite different meanings. DMacks (talk) 17:13, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

@DMacks: Unfortunately for you, I have not confused molar mass and exact mass. I'm perfectly aware of the difference between molar mass and exact mass, which is why I mentioned that there would be very small differences in sources. You've addressed none of my concerns and tried to be clever (which might have worked, had you bothered to read all of my comment). Go away and come back with a proper answer to the problems of calculating molar mass on the fly using this infobox when you're actively removing the only way to confirm the mass (and formula) is correct. Nick (talk) 19:21, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

"Very small differences" to make it contradict basic math. You are welcome (as you say you know how) to do that yourself. Just because you can find WP:V for a number that is numerically close, the ref clearly states that it is not the correct number for the context of the infobox. I do not support inserting material that fails WP:V policy, mis-interpretting sources, or using WP:OR to say that you feel the value is close enough. These are not differences in rounding, but fundamental differences in the whole meaning, that merely in this case happen to be a small percentage difference. DMacks (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

The formula mass v exact mass issue wasn't my initial concern, but having completely fucked up on Leu-Enk twice (being very much stuck in exact mass and stable isotope ratio modes at the moment) I've realised that there's going to be a major problem in trying to verify the formula mass in the way I would like - all that's going to happen is that editors will add in a variety of sources, some of which will have exact mass rather than formula mass - probably with an edit war or two along the way. I intensely dislike the removal of any sort of source which can allow any reader to confirm that the formula mass, as generated by the infobox, is correct, but if providing a source for the formula mass is going to be a problem (which I accept it will be), then at the very least, we have to provide a source which can confirm that the formula itself, as presented in the infobox, is correct and that the automatically calculated formula weight is in turn correct. I would sort of argue that constitutes WP:OR but I genuinely don't have a better idea. I cannot, in good conscience, support a return to the situation on Aspirin before the start of the recent edits, where neither the formula nor the mass was sourced, however. Nick (talk) 08:47, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) IMHO, per WP:CALC, we do not need to cite a source every time {{Chem molar mass}} is transcluded. The template documentation contains sources and that is should be sufficient. To state the obvious, the template should not report digits beyond the precision of the calculation. As a practical matter, if the display is limited to two significant digits (more than enough precision for most purposes) and the uncertainties are less than this, the uncertainties become irrelevant. Furthermore, if there are differences in literature and {{Chem molar mass}}, these may be due to the number of significant digits reported and rounding errors. Again, these small difference are irrelevant. Boghog (talk) 09:14, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The empirical formula is derived from the structure. If the structure is correct and properly sourced, per WP:CALC, the empirical formula derived from it should also be correct. When I draw structure in ChemDraw, I always check the ChemDraw calculated empirical formula and molecular weight against values reported in the literature to make sure that everything is consistent and to catch any errors in the structure that I drew. Boghog (talk) 09:45, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

One of my points is that using autocalculated masses gets away from anyone entering or changing or edit-warring mass values, but instead pushes the WP:V of "all MW of present and future infoboxes individually" down to just a core "element weight" set, just like we so often use templates for centralizing widely re-used content. @DePiep: you said "We need: 1. a correct MW-calculating module" comment--does {{Chem molar mass}} not suffice to the extent needed here? @Nick: you goofed on Leu-Enk a third time--the ref does not say 555.26 as you claim. DMacks (talk) 09:39, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

DMacksNick please stop the bickering, it distrackts me from understanding the issues at hand — difficult enough by themselve for me. -DePiep (talk) 11:46, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

DMacks thanks for catching the transposed digits. 555.62g/mol is what I sat and calculated the mass as this morning, before finding a suitable source to confirm. Just confirm for the sake of my sanity that's the number you're looking for. Nick (talk) 12:54, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

{{Chem molar mass}} is incorrect in that it does not use the uncertainty. Uncertainty in s.a.w. occurs in two forms:

A_{r, standard}(H) = - [ ] notation

A_{r, standard}(F) = - ( ) notation

Good math (and IUPAC/CIAAW) says that the uncertainties can change the result (reduce number of digits). And when applying rounding (say to five digits), that may be done only once: as the latest step, not in the input values.

As Boghog notes, per WP:CALC we can apply on-site wiki-calculation not being WP:OR , provided that we have the basic precautions mentioned in CALC (like we can with {{Convert}}). In this case, I think the calculation must be detailed in both Molar mass#Definitions (already linked to in the lefthand label) and {{Chem molar mass}} documentation.

Question: do we agree that there is just one calculation possible, and so one value per compound (before rounding)? Or do sources vary? (Some years ago I had a created a category "Difference between calculated and value-entered MW", but abandoned it because of -to me- unclear definitions. Likewise we could also categorise when values differ between enwiki calculated, enwiki entered/sourced, wikidata). -DePiep (talk) 11:46, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

That's a difficult question to answer. Yes, there are multiple potential calculations possible, but the aim of the template is to eliminate that and standardise around the CIAAW values, so for practical purposes, there's not really any potential at all for multiple calculations. The problem I have (which I don't think I'm managing to get across to anybody here - probably lost in the midst of me being ridiculously incompetent) is that the calculated MW is only correct as long as the formula given is correct. The removal of sources mean there's no way for anybody to confirm the MW they read is accurate, so if the incorrect formula is entered and goes unnoticed, the MW calculated will always be wrong. Anyway, I've tried to explain my concern. If people are happy not having a source for the formula, the MW, or both, I'm happy to drop the issue. Nick (talk) 12:54, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, that would move the need for sourcing to the formula itself, not its consequences (MW value). Here applies WP:RS and WP:V (not WP:CALC): if the formula can be challenged, a source is required. Preventing wrong data in out articles is the base of wikipedia editing, and in cases (not all compounds) this might need a talk & fleshing out. IMO, this does not require the MW itself to be sourced.

BTW, both infoboxes say molar mass not MW (molar weight). That is the right wording to use? Is the unit always like "g·mol⁻¹"? - DePiep (talk) 13:05, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to phrase it as 'the formula can be challenged'. I'd prefer to think about it as 'the formula might be incorrect'. I'm ever more concerned about people doing what I did - transposing digits and pulling the wrong data from the wrong source by simply not paying attention. If someone was to accidentally (or deliberately) change the formula for Aspirin from C9H8O4 to C9H4O8 (transposing a couple of digits) then the MW changes from 180.16 to 240.12. That's likely to be noticed reasonably quickly on a high traffic page, but on something less prominent, it could go unnoticed for lengthy periods. I don't care whether it's the formula C9H8O4 or whether it's the mass 180.16 which is sourced, but I strongly believe one or the other does, and if we're calculating automatically, then it probably should be the formula. Nick (talk) 13:23, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Fighting vandalism, fixing mistakes and throwing out bad sources is core business at wikipedia. At least doing the calculation inside the template prevents this for MW. As for the formula, and almost all other infobox input, we could compare data with the wikidata value and track delta's. Also, with a set of core data we track Category:Chemboxes which contain changes to verified fields and Category:Chemboxes which contain changes to watched fields (empty???). I'm afraid that is all we can do. Also, this undiscovered vandalism/mistakes/badsource is a reason we do not show wikidata in the infoboxes (discussed here). -DePiep (talk) 13:55, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

References

There is one and only one formula for calculating MW. There maybe some slight differences in the data that is fed into the formula. One just needs to document the source of that data. There are separate formula for estimating error (I.e., propagation of error). Boghog (talk) 13:57, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

As an intermediate result, I understand that we seriously want to rely on {{Chem molar mass}} and do internal MW calculation. Then, tracking maintenance categories can be used to list differences (wrt wikidata, |MolarMass= input, |Formula= input). {{Chem molar mass}} can use an improvement re uncertainties and standard rounding (TBD) in infoboxes. In the future, I can work on this. -DePiep (talk) 14:08, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Source the formula and (doing a full circle back to where we came in) note that the formula mass is calculated automatically based on the (hopefully, verified) formula. Nick (talk) 16:37, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

OK then. btw, "molar mass" MM is the word (or correct me). When I meet issues (like weird molecule formula), I'll be on this talkpage. My pleasure from this talk is that MM is a stable issue in chemistry. -DePiep (talk) 19:33, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

The conventional atomic weights (Table 3 in Meija, et al. 2016) for the common elements contained in drugs (C,H,N,O) are all listed to three digit accuracy (the variation in atomic weights do not exceed ± 1 in the third digit). Taking into account propagation of errors when calculating the molecular weight of a drug-like molecule from conventional atomic weights, the variation in molecular weights is not likely to exceed ± 1 in the second digit after the decimal point. By default, {{Chem molar mass}} returns two digits after the decimal point. The variation in MWs might be slightly higher for molecules containing unusual elements or for high molecule weight molecules. Even for these worst cases, the variations in MW are unlikely to exceed exceed ± ~3 in the second digit. For the vast majority of small molecule drugs, reporting two digit accuracy in MW is justified and IMHO, reporting the accuracy or range of values is unnecessary. Boghog (talk) 08:47, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

OK, good deduction. So we likely are not in error. And indeed, in these infoboxes we don't need to report the uncertainty. But ultimately, I'd like to have the calculation 100% ok, just in case we need a more accurate MM (and to make a nice module). -DePiep (talk) 09:39, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 10 February 2019

Please copy /sandbox code into live template code (diff).

Change: parameter |catname= removed, because it is deprecated (removed) and now polluting Category:Pages using Chem molar mass with unsupported parameters (0) DePiep (talk) 15:28, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

 Done -- /Alex/₂₁ 14:57, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Hazards: expand GHS data

Maybe in {{Chembox Hazards}} GHS data (testcases), we could add: pictogram meaning in short text; statement code (phrase) links & tooltip. -DePiep (talk) 09:44, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm confused. Is this a proposal for the drugbox or the chembox? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 04:02, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Legal status

See also: Dietary supplement § Legal regulation

Not sure how others feel about this, but we usually use a drugbox in articles on pharmacologically active compounds that are regulated as dietary supplements. Should this be an added as an input option? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 04:02, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

There already are the #Legal status options: |legal_US=, |legal_US_comment=, |legal_EU= etc. Aren't these OK when used for food additives?

Some side notes:

1. Today E number, read from Wikidata, is automatically added to the infobox (Category:E number from Wikidata (372)).
2. {{Chembox}} also has Legal status parameters, same set as {{Infobox drug}}. (see Saccharin, list (57 P)).
3. Food additives: also includes talc which "is" an {{infobox mineral}}.

Maybe the wider question is: do we want this {{Infobox drug}} to be used in food additive pages in general (Category:Food additives (238))? Maybe you expect to read something like "This is a food additive [too]" in the infobox?

DePiep (talk) 07:22, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

• My opinion: better not add dietary (food) data. {{Infobox drug}} is based on single-chemical drugs, not huge molecules combined into food. ~iIt would weaken the topic of "Drugbox" (concept creep). -DePiep (talk) 10:35, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Adding link to dosage information

To the infobox would be useful. Doses are something users often request. We could link to these pages for example maybe

https://www.drugs.com/dosage/azithromycin.html

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:55, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

That would be a parameter then, not just an external link. Can we read & show the Wikidata value? Like in Vitamin C where E number and ECHA Infocard are from WD, with the editbutton=pencil available. BTW, the archives have earlier discussion on this. -DePiep (talk) 10:37, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

I am not seeing dosage listed here [6]

Dosage also listed on pages such as this[7] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:33, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

• replies Doc James. I was not proposing to link to an external page (like ECHA). I mentioned vitamin C with E number and ECHA ID number examples of a read data from Wikidata.

See also earlier discussion: Archive 16.

I don't think Wikipedia should provide this info through an external link. EL is a source, we are WP:NOTLINKFARM and WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Instead, WP must provide the data readable. (pls allow me to use these 'easy; shortcuts, I think any longer description would be less clear).

• Now for the bigger picture, and the important questions. I sincerely ask: when you say "users often request doses", are those drug users or users of the encyclopedia? How are you sure these are not requests for a MANUAL? (we don't do medical advice). I'm sure you know the difference, even better than I do, so I'm interested in your opinion in this re DDD.

There is also WP:PHARMMOS that says:

"Do not include dose or titration information except when they are extensively discussed by secondary sources, necessary for the discussion in the article, or when listing equivalent doses between different pharmaceuticals."

Since this is a MOS, we shold have strong arguments to change that. -DePiep (talk) 09:09, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Adjusting a few things

I would say that

"| onset = " "| duration_of_action = "

Are clinical data. Well the ATC code would fit better under identifiers. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:13, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Are they *not* pharmacikinetic data? It may be seductive to put alsmost everything under 'clinical', because almost everything is used in the clinics. Even names are in that section already. However, the infobox is not a documentation for clinics. Being an infobox, every data point should be at a more specific place when possible.

As for ATC: this is a classification, not an identifier. We could add a section 'classes'. -DePiep (talk) 05:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 19 April 2019: Add Australia's name on hover to the country name abbr for drug/pregnancy category

Change AU to AU

so that the country name is shown on hover and that the cursor change on hover is not misleading.

This matches the format already found for the US section country name abbr of the drug/pregnancy category template. MosquitoBird11 (talk) 16:24, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

 Done Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 16:50, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 April 2019

Please copy/paste all code from {{Infobox drug/sandbox}} into {{Infobox drug}} (diff).

Change: add |DTXSID=, |DTXCID2= as identifer creating an external link to CompTox Chemistry Dashboard. By default, the first value is read from Wikidata DSSTox substance ID (P3117); this is overwriteable and suppressable.

Discussed: here at talk {{Chembox}}. Test: here for aspirine. DePiep (talk) 10:34, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

 Done. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:38, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Smallcaps in drug_name

Dexter and laevus have to be written in smallcaps by IUPAC rules. E.g. l-Norpseudoephedrine. If you use smallcaps in drug_name the whole title becomes smallcaps.

l-Norpseudoephedrine

Chemical and physical data
Formula	C9H13NO
Molar mass	151.209 g·mol−1

| drug_name = {{sc|L}}-Norpseudoephedrine

Or:

| drug_name = {{sm|l}}-Norpseudoephedrine

Chembox is OK. Gyimhu (talk) 04:01, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

L-Norpseudoephedrine

Chemical and physical data
Formula	C9H13NO
Molar mass	151.209 g·mol−1

Looks like a bug in the interaction with the {{sc}}/{{sm}} templates, which use <span> for formatting. Using <small>L</small> works fine. DMacks (talk) 05:33, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

{{Drugbox| drug_name = {{sm|l}}-Norpseudoephedrine}} expands into:

<table class="infobox" style="width:22em;border-spacing:2px;"><caption><span title="International nonproprietary name (INN): <span class="smallcaps">l</span>-Norpseudoephedrine"><span class="smallcaps">l</span>-Norpseudoephedrine</span></caption></table>

Apparently is added over whole title. INN seems irrelevant. -DePiep (talk) 08:19, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Looks like Module:Infobox does this, same effect in generic {{Infobox}} with |title=. {{Chembox}} does not use {{Infobox}}. -DePiep (talk) 09:00, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Maybe it's getting confused by nested quotes of the same character?

<table class="infobox" style="width:22em;border-spacing:2px;"><caption><span title="International nonproprietary name (INN): <span class="smallcaps">l</span>-Norpseudoephedrine"><span class="smallcaps">l</span>-Norpseudoephedrine</span></caption></table>

In red is the |drug_name=, which is filled into the quoted title attribute of the green <span>. But the smallcaps formatting templates are inserting their a quoted strings (red src and class attributes). Are title attributes even allowed to have HTML/CSS, or are they only plaintext? When I hover over Gyimhu's first example, the tooltip contains an unprintable binary character; hovering over mine second example displays the raw HTML.

That all comes from a Drugbox helper template: {{Infobox drug/title|title={{sm|l}}-Norpseudoephedrine}} renders as l-Norpseudoephedrine. DMacks (talk) 18:28, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Looks like |INN=<blank> spoils it:

{{Infobox drug/title |title={{sm|l}}-Norpseudoephedrine|INN=foo}} → l-Norpseudoephedrine
INN: foo Y

-DePiep (talk) 21:50, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

EMA licence link

EMA approval links no longer work (error 404) since EMA migrated to a new website. See for example Afamelanotide where EU licence link should lead here: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/scenesse. — kashmīrī ^TALK 14:52, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Kashmiri Looking at this. Problem: "Afamelanotide" is the INN, but that does not work any more in the new link .../human/EPAR/afamelanotide N. Has EMA dropped the INN name as identifier?

Problem 2: otrher drug names (INN) dooesn't seem to work either. What is the translation principle (from Afamelanotide to scenesse ?)

Is there any documentation on the site for the new situation (especially, we want to skip the Search-page of course).

Testcases are at /testcases3. -DePiep (talk) 15:44, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

The problem is both with INN/proprietary names and with the EMA search engine URL (it is no longer located at the old URL).

The search template should be updated to use the following URL:

[A] https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/search/search/ema_group_types/ema_medicine?search_api_views_fulltext="%1"

It works both for INN and tradenames. — kashmīrī ^TALK 15:51, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Alternately, for INN only,

[B] https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/search/search/ema_group_types/ema_medicine/search_api_aggregation_ema_inn_common_name/"%1"

— kashmīrī ^TALK 15:56, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Better. See testcases: I managed to end up at the search-results page indeed. However, this is the searchpage and not the EPAR page we want (I think). Takes another knowledge look & click for our reader, which is not good of course. If you know something for this (API? doc page?) I'd like to hear.

I will do some more tests (tomorrow). Note that {{Infobox drug}} uses the INN, but EMA has alternate INN names (eg salt or not; notation of isotopes is bad for automation wrt superscripts etc). Here and overview of INN names I had to manually check & change to use the EMA site in 2017... -DePiep (talk) 16:12, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Does not look well. I have added both [A] and [B] to the testcases.

Example Afamelanotide (INN), EPAR under /scenesse: A=1, B=1 result.

Example Warfarin (INN): A=404 results (trade names (all?), none /warfarin), B=0 results.

IOW, Searching by INN is not to be trusted (and still ends up at the search page listing, not the EPAR page itself). EMA has switched off search by INN, and/or publish EPAR by INN. I don't think we should have this link, it does not help the reader except for a "go search by yourself" external link. -DePiep (talk) 09:33, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

More: urls A and B do not differ between human and vetenarian. [8] gives 1348 EPARs in total for human. Also interesting information management (Dec 2018), IDMP (ISO), and a downloadable [https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/download-medicine-data#european-public-assessment-reports-(epar)-section spreadsheet table (1350 human EPARs).The IT situation is very fluid. as of today. -DePiep (talk) 07:13, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

• I think we should do this:

Today, the licence data is fed with the INN not a trade name. However, EMA (seems to) have changed to trade name IDs (the EPAR is under a trade name, can be multiple trade names for one INN).

We first change to use URL [B], as that uses the INN we have.

Later on, we can research how to cover this better (one INN, multiple trade names = need transformation from inn to list of treade names...).

Todo: check [B] URL encoding requirements (spaces, punctuation).

-DePiep (talk) 08:27, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Target page at EMA site (2019-10)

Hello, in case it is helpful, the urls for the medicine overview pages on the EMA website now all follow the same structure: ema.europa.eu/medicines/human/EPAR/<medicine invented name> If the name has two or more words, the spaces are replaced with - Libby EMAcomm (talk) 18:01, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Searching the EMA site for "aspirin" returned:

[ema.europa.eu/medicines/human/EPAR/plavix] (active substance: INN Clopidogrel)

[ema.europa.eu/medicines/human/EPAR/iscover] (active substance: INN Clopidogrel)

and more.

Looks like the "<medicine invented name>" (?) is a commercial name (possible tradmark registered).

INN "clopidogrel" by itself does not have an EPAR page: [9]

So to have the right link to EMA, we here at enwiki must search & check the commercial names. -DePiep (talk) 18:27, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes that's right, there is a medicine overview page for every trade name, they are not done by INN. There is an Excel sheet that has INNs with the respective trade names and urls for the medicine overview pages, this might be useful. It is available here: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/download-medicine-data#european-public-assessment-reports-(epar)-section under 'Download table of all EPARs for human and veterinary medicines' Libby EMAcomm (talk) 07:50, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Question: does the EMA site have an "API"? That is: an automated entrance for searches, links, &tc? That API entrance documentation could be published on the webstite. (About me being pedantic now: see below ;-) ) For us at enwiki, that API would allow us to write a correct, automated URL from drug articles by {{Infobox drug}}. IOW: if there is an API, please publish or share it. If we cannot automate it, data will be outdated and wrong for ~sure.

I think enwiki can greatly use the spreadsheet you mention. There are a lot of 1-to-n id relations, and id-like -to- id relations — to be resolved. This, and the fact that the spreadsheet updates, so enwiki must update too.

Since it is hard to synch this with co-editors at Wikidata in chemistry (you must know about concept differences), for now I cannot preview a synchronuous introduction of the EMA spreadsheet into Wikidata (incorporating it into enwiki will be separate from incorporation into Wikidata). You can ask me for suggestions re Wikidata (automated updates they do).

self-re me being "pedantic": I don't know your position within EMA. The concept of 'API' and 'search & link through URL' is basic for what we do at enwiki in infoboxes like {{Infobox drug}}. Must be also what (EMA-)site-managers do. Let me suggest that you talk about it with your EMA (web-developers) site-people.

Also: welcome to Europe! Hope you enjoy the place, the stay, the people, and all the 42. (BTW, in the EU, English is an official language because of Ireland). -DePiep (talk) 22:17, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

minor change re: IUPAC names

Drugbox has only "IUPAC_name =" whereas Chembox has both "PIN =" and "SystematicName =". I suppose editors should know to use the "Preferred IUPAC Name" but it is useful to also have the systematic name listed where the PIN is a retained name. Any way to have all three in the Drugbox template (so existing articles aren't affected)? See Preferred IUPAC name and Paracetamol where this issue was found.71.230.16.111 (talk) 22:34, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

drug identifier: RxNorm and SNOMED CT

I plan to add RxNorm and SNOMED CT drug ingredient identifiers to the infobox. I will make the change first in sandbox. Following larger trend, the relationships would be fetched from Wikidata.EncycloABC (talk) 15:13, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

This infobox is very different from ((medical resources)). Can someone help me how I can learn the coding of infoboxes?. Also, if main person maintaining it can not post, which admin comes to rescue?EncycloABC (talk) 16:18, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

my goal is to fetch the WD Q item for the drug at hand and than for that Q item, retrieve all RxNorm codes and output them. QID parameter is already there. EncycloABC (talk) 16:21, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

There is Help:Designing infoboxes which has a section on implementation. Once there is a working version in the sandbox, you can use the template {{edit template-protected}} here on this talk page to let template editors know that you'd like the changes be transferred to the live template. Huon (talk) 02:12, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I personally don’t care, but others have objected to the addition of more Infobox ELs in previous discussions. Not sure why no one has objected on that basis. I’m not familiar with those DBs, so my position is neutral ATM. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:15, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for replies. I support the split of the infobox and moving the ELs to a new "entity". I am confused what was actually decided in Aug 2019. Any work on this depends on that August outcome.EncycloABC (talk) 15:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

As of about a week ago, there's now a 4-2 majority for implementing it; but, there's an ongoing, very heated, and rather protracted debate about if/how to cover drug pricing at MOS:MED, so any action on the proposal has to wait until that's been decided. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:23, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Veterinary drug classification

Would it be possible to add a legal status for veterinary drugs? There are a two main scenarios:

• Approved for veterinary use but not human use, for example euthanasia agents such as phenytoin/pentobarbital
• Approved for veterinary use and human use, for example meloxicam

Veterinary drugs additionally may be prescription only, or OTC. DferDaisy (talk) 01:12, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of the |PubChemSubstance= parameter

I don't understand why we have this parameter in the template. PubChem Substance entries on a chemical are depositor-supplied data pages on a chemical that are used in the corresponding PubChem Compound entry (see https://pubchemdocs.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/substances). There's a many-to-one relationship between PubChem Substance records and a PubChem Compound record for any given chemical. E.g., amphetamine PubChem Compound CID is 3007. Searching the PubChem Substance records for "amphetamine" yields about 6 pages of records, starting on page 2 and ending on page 8, that are associated with CID 3007, and most if not all the data in those substance records are included in the compound record.

Unless there's something I'm missing, the external link generated by |PubChemSubstance= in the drugbox is at best redundant with the linked entry for the |PubChem= parameter and at worst an utterly useless EL in the event that the linked substance ID contains no actual chemical information from the depositor. I propose that this parameter be deleted from the drugbox template.

Edit: I see that the documentation states: If no CID is available, which is usually the case when there is no structural information on PubChem, you may use one of the substance identifiers (SIDs); the choice of SID seems arbitrary. I don't think an SID link should be used as an alternative when a CID link doesn't exist. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 10:59, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

• Background: |PubChemSubstance= was added in 2010 [10], after this talk. It was to be showing only when no CID was entered. Currently the parameter is used some 63 times.

re Seppi333. Having read the Compound link provided above, I can agree with Seppi333's proposal to remove it: not only is there a understructured association in PubChem with CID's, also the data provided by third parties to PubChgem is not controlled (responsibility is with the uploader).

Looking at example Etanercept from the Archive talk: the SID leads to PC datapage uploaded by/from KEGG; but the KEGG datapage is already present in the drugbox here (detail: Enwiki KEGG id is D00742, and leads to synonym id C07897 page apparently; not relevant here IMO). Also, a CAS RN is provided. I cannot see why PubChem does not have a CID for this substance.

All in all, the SID is solely reproduced data, and if that data would be relevant we should link to the original database (like KEGG through |KEGG=).

So I support deletion because of these data qualities (degraded, uncontrolled, secondary). Documentation should emphasise that SID number is useless input in |PubChem= ie CID; (EL will not work as expected). -DePiep (talk) 15:45, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Vaccine types

The vaccine_type parameter doesn't support live virus vaccines. The adenovirus vaccine is a live vaccine that is not attenuated.

Adenovirus Type 4 and Type 7 Vaccine, Live, Oral contains viable, selected strains of human adenovirus Type 4 and human adenovirus Type 7 prepared in human-diploid fibroblast cell cultures (strain WI-38). The virus strains have not been attenuated. The cells are grown and the virus growth maintained in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium, fetal bovine serum, and sodium bicarbonate. The virus is harvested, freed of particulate cellular material by filtration, formulated and dried by lyophilization. The dried virus material includes monosodium glutamate, sucrose, D-mannose, D-fructose, dextrose, human serum albumin, potassium phosphate, and plasdone C.

The final vaccine is composed of two tablets (one tablet of Adenovirus Type 4 and one tablet of Adenovirus Type 7) designed to pass intact through the stomach and release the live virus in the intestine. Each enteric-coated tablet contains an inner core tablet containing anhydrous lactose, microcrystalline cellulose, polacrilin potassium, magnesium stearate, and live adenovirus, either Type 4 or Type 7, at a potency of no fewer than 32,000 tissue-culture infective doses (4.5 log10 TCID50) per tablet. The outer tablet layer contains microcrystalline cellulose, magnesium stearate, and anhydrous lactose, with an enteric coating consisting of cellulose acetate phthalate, alcohol, acetone, and castor oil. The Type 7 tablet also contains FD&C Yellow #6 aluminum lake dye.

Whywhenwhohow (talk) 23:13, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

re Whywhenwhohow. So. |vaccine_type= has options as listed here. Do I understand you want to add option |vaccine_type=live virus, and then which text (wikilinks) should it show? -DePiep (talk) 15:56, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

@DePiep: We could use type |vaccine_type=virus with output "Live virus". Whywhenwhohow (talk) 22:54, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, input better be more distinctive too, see the other options. And there is no wikilink for "Live virus"? -DePiep (talk) 06:43, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

The existing value |vaccine_type=live should be changed to something like |vaccine_type=live bacteria to eliminate ambiguity. It doesn't have a wikilink. Whywhenwhohow (talk) 07:14, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

• Resolved
  -- It appears that the parameter already accepts any input! So |vaccine_type=Foo Bar → Foo Bar. Was mising in the documentation :-(

I have edited Adenovirus vaccine, please check. -DePiep (talk) 19:16, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

US license Drugs@FDA links no longer work

It doesn't appear that the search term can be specified as a query parameter and the links redirect to the home search page at https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/daf/

For example, for Aspirin

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/drugsatfda/index.cfm?fuseaction=Search.SearchAction&SearchTerm=Aspirin&SearchType=BasicSearch

and for Ibuprofen

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/drugsatfda/index.cfm?fuseaction=Search.SearchAction&SearchTerm=Ibuprofen&SearchType=BasicSearch

Whywhenwhohow (talk) 00:54, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Looks like API (search URL) has changed. We need their publication on this (formal API publication). -DePiep (talk) 07:11, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

We can just reverse engineer it. It will never be formally published. We will wait forever.EncycloABC (talk) 15:14, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

It works using the NDA number. For example, for Lipitor

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/daf/index.cfm?event=overview.process&varApplNo=020702

Whywhenwhohow (talk) 18:13, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

The links on the NIH pages work. It looks like they are using POST instead of GET. For example, take a look at the "Information from the US Food & Drug Administration (Drugs@FDA)" link at the bottom of the page https://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov/drugportal/name/sulfasalazine

Whywhenwhohow (talk) 20:49, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

The EMA and FDA license fields don't work. What are the plans to fix them? Does it make sense to display those fields when the links don't work? Here is a link to an archived discussion of the EU/EMA license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Infobox_drug/Archive_17#EMA_licence_link

Whywhenwhohow (talk) 19:23, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Recap

So far, re FDA we have:

Option 1: use NDA (New Drug Application, numeric ID)

eg Lipitor NDA=020702 https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/daf/index.cfm?event=overview.process&varApplNo=020702

Option 2: use NIH site, there reader should click "Information from the US Food & Drug Administration (Drugs@FDA)"

eg sulfasalazine https://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov/drugportal/name/sulfasalazine (I note: the Drugs@FDA page does not seem to be specific, and shows little info).

Option 3: use dailymed, (found this through the infobox, working):

eg sulfasalazine https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/search.cfm?labeltype=all&query=Sulfasalazine

None is ideal, IMO. Information returned is not specific, and hard to research for more data.

Come to think: what info do we really want to link to? Approval status, labeltext, marketed names?

-DePiep (talk) 08:10, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Checking Wikidata:

lipidor R→ atorvastatin: atorvastatin (Q668093)

sulfasalazine: sulfasalazine (Q420035)

As far as I can see, WD does not have a property for "FDA identifier". -DePiep (talk) 08:22, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Option 4: use a POST request instead of a GET request like the NIH page uses for its link to the Drugs@FDA site. Whywhenwhohow (talk) 17:00, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I am not too familiar with the diff between POST and GET (is like user-Click vs. url-Read I guess). Isn't this Option 3 anyway?

Could you elaborate or examplify pls? And, how is this not Option 3; do we want such a result page? -DePiep (talk) 19:52, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

@DePiep: GET and POST are variations of the HTTP protocol use to communicate with the server. When using GET the parameters are encoded in the query parameters in the URL. When using POST the parameters are contained in the packet. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POST_(HTTP) for further details. Option 3 uses DailyMed. This option fixes the behavior so it works as it did before the FDA API change and gets the same results from the Drugs@FDA site. Referencing the NIH Sulfasalazine page you mentioned above clicking on the "Information from the US Food & Drug Administration (Drugs@FDA)" link uses a POST request to load the page that used to work in response to a GET request. Whywhenwhohow (talk) 21:19, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Looks like Option 4 (~like #3?) is the only possible route. Is that the link we want? As a Reader, I would not find much help in the example. I'd like to see broader supprt for this. Also: does this imply each drug must have a dedicated parameter for this FDA-identifier? -DePiep (talk) 01:00, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Multiple entries for various parameters

Some drugs, like vaccines, have more than two entries in external databases but the template does not support more than two entries other than for ATC and CAS by using supplemental. The Dengue vaccine contains four serotypes and there are four separate DrugBank entries and four separate UNII entries for each serotype. There are similar issues with other parameters in the template for other vaccines. Any thoughts on extending the multiple parameter limit past two or using supplemental for more parameters?Whywhenwhohow (talk) 23:47, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I support a change to allow multiple links. Drug box should follow what medical condition is doing. First, use Wikidata. Second, move some of the links (and this includes the ATC link) into medical resources.EncycloABC (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

I also agree to extend multiple entries on parameters as mentioned above. Ckfasdf (talk) 22:39, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Would support implementation of this. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:11, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

The multiple parameters would be useful for combo drugs too. Whywhenwhohow (talk) 23:41, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

It seems we have consensus to revise |DrugBank= and |UNII= to support more than two entries. Then, I will make edit template request. Ckfasdf (talk) 09:40, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

@Ckfasdf: Why limit it to just those two? Infobox chemical supports multiple identifiers for its parameters CASNo, ChEBI, ChEMBL, ChemSpiderID, DrugBank, InChI, KEGG, PubChem, SMILES, UNII. Can we do the same here for the equivalent ones and add support for multiple MedlinePlus and Drugs.com too? Whywhenwhohow (talk) 09:58, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

It was not really my intention to limit just those two parameters. It's just since I am new on this request and I don't know possible technical difficulties to fulfill our request and also those two parameters are the one we are discussing before.

Anyway, To whom who can edit template. Kindly please also change |DrugBank=, |UNII=, |CASNo=, |ChEBI=, |ChEMBL=, |ChemSpiderID, |DrugBank=, |InChI=, |KEGG=, |PubChem=, and |SMILES= to support more than two entries as per discussion above. Ckfasdf (talk) 10:06, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

The first step is to add your proposed code to the /sandbox. Then it needs testing to make sure it does what it's supposed to do. Then please reactivate this request. Cheers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:43, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Index option explored

Let's see what we have. The requested list is (see right):

CASnumber 
DrugBank
UNII 
ChEBI
ChEMBL
ChemSpiderID
DrugBank
InChI
KEGG
PubChem
SMILES

• In this infobox, now there are options "2" like CAS_number2, for eighteen (18) identifiers/parameters. See documentation.

• Index numbering example: {{ Chembox}} has
  • CASNo
  • CASNo1
  • CASNo2
  • CASNo3
  • CASNo4
  • CASNo5
  • CASNoOther
  • CASNo_Comment

Note the indexes: <blank> 1 2 3 4 5, plus Other (used unedited, unformatted) and a generic _Comment

{{Chembox}} also has labels per index number to describe each indexed substance, see Linalool.

• Consider adding to the list: ATC, ...
• Currently, {{Infobox drug}} has similar options for |type=combo, Category:Drugs that are a combination of chemicals (496).

| component1 =<!-- name, will be wikilinked -->
| class1     =<!-- class of agent, needs manual wikilinking -->
| (1 ... 4)

See also documentation. These indexes should be integrated at some moment.

-DePiep (talk) 01:34, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Volume of distribution is recommended to be comprised in pharmacokinetic data.

Continued: I personally feel it's necessarily as it tells us not only the volume of distribution but also if the drug crosses the brain-blood barrier at a glance. Regards. --Reciprocater (Talk) 11:55, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 15 May 2020

The Australian entries in this template have two problems, one easily fixable, one requing specialist knowledge. Firstly, the article they link to has been renamed - it is now Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Medicines and Poisons. Secondly, all of the section links are invalid. Mostly this is simply because of differing capitalisation (e.g. #Pharmacy Medicine vs. #Pharmacy medicine) but in some cases the terminology is different (e.g. Dangerous poison vs Dangerous drug). this may reflect a change of legal approach or it may not be significant - only a subject matter expert would know. And to make matters worse, the capitalisation of the target article's sections is inconsistent - e.g. #Schedule 7: Dangerous Drug vs. #Schedule 8: Controlled drug vs. #Schedule 9: prohibited substance. I therefore request that at least the first problem should be fixed. I don't have the knowledge to request appropriate fixes for the second problem. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:15, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@Colonies Chris: I've 'paused' the request for now (effectively 'answered'), because these edits need to be specified first (we will work towards actual code changes). -DePiep (talk) 13:44, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

• @Colonies Chris: I have prepared the changes in the /sandbox:

Target article is Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Medicines and Poisons, no redirect.

All Schedules 2–10 now use an anchor to link to, like "#Schedule 3" (so is independent of further section texts like "poison").

Added S10 (new in SUSMP)

Used informative labeltext from article, like "S6 (Poison)".

Please take a look at /testcases3#Legal for AU (comparing old/live vs. new/sandbox situations for S2-S10). Please report here any improvements or an OK. :-) -DePiep (talk) 14:38, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a very neat solution and comprehensive updating of the article. It all looks good to me. Colonies Chris (talk) 16:13, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

• Please update {{Infobox drug/legal status}} with {{Infobox drug/legal status/sandbox}}, all code (diff).

Change: updated for new Australian (AU) law; add S10 (SUSMP).

Tests: see /testcases3. Consensus: see discussion above.

-DePiep (talk) 17:10, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Jonesey95 thx. Why did you write 'Needs testing' in the es? /testcases3 was linked to, and checked etc. Also, one would expect an |answered=yes edit here. -DePiep (talk) 18:52, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, everyone. I completed the edit and clicked the "Done" button here, but my computer or the WP servers glitched, and my talk page response was not saved to the database. I didn't notice until just now. I checked the results of my edits in about ten articles with different Schedule levels assigned by Australia, and the links worked well. Let me know if my edits caused any trouble. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:36, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: No problem re the misfortune.

However, it appears that you did not perform the edit as requested. Instead, you altered the content before saving the new code, all in one edit (diff btwn prepared sandbox code vs. your edit in the live template). You did not discuss your changes. You did not provide a summary in the es. You did not clarify in the |answered=yes talkpage edit above. This is not changing to preventing bugs etc., this is content change. Meanhile, by skipping the /sandbox and /testcase check (the proposed edit had done), you also introduced a bug; this is not #Wise template editing.

By now, I notice there is a pattern in your behaviour: repeatedly you enforced undiscussed edits one-sidely, while you should know these are controversial for example because they pertain to an ongoing or recently concluded discussion. To do so, you used your WP:TPE rights. This is problematic in multiple senses; see WP:TPE throughout, and #Use and WP:TPEBOLD for starters. There is also #Criteria for revocation #1.

I propose you (1) revert your edit, (2) perform the edit as requested, and (3) if you wish to propose changes, start a talk—but only after (1), (2). Also, I strongly suggest you refrain from such edits in the future. There is a simple guideline: when in doubt, start a talk. -DePiep (talk) 10:30, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I answered the (by the requester's own admission, somewhat vague) original edit request to the best of my understanding and posted here saying "Let me know if my edits caused any trouble." I addressed both the linking issues and the capitalization issues brought up by the requester. The original request did not ask for Schedule 10, so I did not add it. At the time of my edits, there had been no changes made to the sandbox or the test cases page. I see now that there are differences between the sandbox and the live module (Schedule 10, and differences in capitalization), but I see no bugs and DePiep has not provided any specific examples. All of that said, I have reverted my edits because I have learned that it is never good for me to engage with DePiep, who is under editing restrictions for repeated failure to interact in good faith and who lost template editor rights for very good reasons. Colonies Chris: please provide your feedback re capitalization and the potential addition of Schedule 10. Feel free to edit the sandbox to match your preferences (and the target article, and the sources supporting the language in the target article), then re-activate the edit request. If you are lucky, another template editor will take care of it for you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:40, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I am happy with the solution proposed and coded up by DePiep. The test cases provided look fine to me. I wasn't aware anyone else was working on a solution. Colonies Chris (talk) 19:01, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Jonesey95 You keep evading the issue at hand: you did not perform the request, you did not discuss your edits, you used your TPE privilege to enforce your opinion. Alas, you did revert (1), but still did not perform teh original request (2). And also you think it useful to call this pushback an "attack". -DePiep (talk) 17:57, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

WP:STICK. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:44, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

You could have performed the request (i.e., step (2)). Instead, I had to rerequest it. Also, your notion of an "attack" is not an invitation to drop it. Have a nive e edit. -DePiep (talk) 19:53, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• The edit was reverted (nullified) by Jonesey95 [11]; step (1). No step (2) and (3) then. No further clarification was provided, except that the editor found it necessary to accuse some people of an "attack" in their es.

Given that the state now is 'pre-request', I have made a new, fresh, similar request per today, May 17. -DePiep (talk) 17:47, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Would it be possible to add additional field for the status of controlled substances in non-Western English-speaking countries?

As of right now we have fields for the legal status of drugs in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the United Nations conventions. Only two of these places aren't first-world countries, Brazil and the United Nations. This is in my view a problem as readers of Wikipedia come from all around the world and while it's not necessary to include every country's drug classification there are definitely some anglophone countries that should be added. India is a prime example. There are many Indians who read the English Wikipedia, in fact there are more Indian English speakers than there are people in every country listed above except Brazil and America, see List of countries by English-speaking population. Adding a legal_IN field to the infobox would be helpful to the many Indian English speakers that read Wikipedia. Likewise for Nigeria and Pakistan, both countries that have English as an official language and have more English speakers than there are people in many other countries represented in the infobox. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 20:18, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to read by other editors what good sense is in this. Is there a natural list (out of ~200 countries)? Anglophone? Big countries? Also, I don't know if there are similar infobox examples. -DePiep (talk) 21:05, 19 May 2020 (UTC) ping @Chess: -DePiep (talk) 21:08, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

IMO, one requirement should be to have an article about the law here, similar to List of Schedule I drugs (US), Drugs controlled by the UK Misuse of Drugs Act and Drugs controlled by the German Betäubungsmittelgesetz. I don't think something like that exists for India (yet). Aethyta (talk) 00:41, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 May 2020

• Please update {{Infobox drug/legal status}} with {{Infobox drug/legal status/sandbox}}, all code (diff).

Change: updated for new Australian (AU) law; add S10 (SUSMP).

Tests: see /testcases3. Consensus: see discussion above.

Note: A previous, similar request was cancelled.

-DePiep (talk) 10:48, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

 Done Sceptre (talk) 01:05, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Infobox updates proposal

I propose to update {{Infobox drug}} with these edits:

1. Use new {{Infobox}} parameter |autoheaders=yes,

2. Adjust infobox header usage (only semantical headers used as such; otherwise use like |below=),

3. Adjust |data_page= logic: input overrules default page.

1. When set |autoheaders=yes in the meta-infobox {{Infobox drug}}, all empty, idle headers are suppressed (headers with no data rows do not show). This replaces the more elaborate code like:

OLD:
| header50 = {{#if:{{{sources|}}}{{{targets|}}}{{{receptors|}}}{{{agonists|}}}{{{antagonists|}}}{{{precursor|}}}{{{biosynthesis|}}}
|[[Physiological]] data}} 

NEW:
| autoheaders = yes
| header50 = [[Physiological]] data

2. In two cases, |headerN=some data was semantically misused: data "Data page" and "Verification" was shown as a sole header (and would subsequentially be hidden for having no data rows ;-) ). I have changed the code to show these data rows either as datafield or as 'below'. See /testcases11.

3.: |data_page= allows adding a data page; otherwise an existing datapage is linked to (example: Caffeine has Caffeine (data page)). I changed the logic: when there is input, that page is linked to; otherwise the default pagename is used -- when existing. BTW, {{Infobox drug}} has * seven such data pages; none set by |data_page= i.e., all by default name.

These changes are mainly technical/logical; no content changes should appear. We need to be extra careful though for information disappearing (without warning apparently). One can check any article by previewing that article with edit {{Infobox drug/sandbox|name=abc|...}} Comments or ideas? -DePiep (talk) 12:30, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Not on my main comp right now, but I can definitely hit the autoheaders tomorrow if no one else gets to it first. Primefac (talk) 23:37, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Nothing to 'hit' IMO :-) For example, I noticed that |header70 = interacts with other sections=headers, via |metabolism= (|header50). Intentionally. Will take a better look at this shortly. -DePiep (talk) 23:58, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

BTW, main testpage is Template:Infobox drug/testcases11. Edits are in {{Infobox drug/sandbox}}, but of course communication is through this talkpage. -DePiep (talk) 00:01, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

checked: show/hide header50 (Physiological, Dopamine) and header70 (Pharmacokinetic, Aspirine), both (Phenethylamine) interaction wrt |metabolism=. Works as expected. -DePiep (talk) 17:10, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 July 2020

Please replace all live code with all sandbox code ({{Infobox drug}} ← {{Infobox drug/sandbox}}; diff).

Change: one tracking category changed to use {{Main other}} (undo category pollution).

Discussion: trivial edit. DePiep (talk) 08:40, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done Primefac (talk) 17:47, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

US prescription statistics

Many drug leads contain two United States statistics drawn from ClinCalc Top 300 Drugs and each ClinCalc drug page. The first is the linear rank of the drug in terms of outpatient prescriptions. The second the number of prescriptions in millions. Both are not in fact hard facts but are extrapolated estimates made by a yearly poll.

At a recent discussion at WT:MED, it was noted that the linear figure is too precise vs reality: outside of the top 50, the drugs may move up and down the list by quite large amounts each year. Further the drop in sales after the top 3 drugs is more like exponential than linear, meaning that the top 3 is far more important than the top 10 which is far more important than the top 50 and so on. The top 300 is a fairly arbitrary cut-off on the source website, and many drugs in the bottom of the top 300 won't be in the list the following year, due to random fluctuations.

Could we find a way to indicate these prescription figures but without giving a linear figure like "is 207th most commonly prescribed", which is just too precise and hard relate to. Perhaps a linear number is stable enough and meaningful enough in e.g. the top 20? Could we use bigger chunks for others and just say "Top 50" or "Top 100" and maybe it isn't even worth noting after the top 100 or top 200?

Is there also some way we could document the meaning of these numbers, to indicate to a reader who wants to know, that these are extrapolations from a poll? -- Colin°^Talk 18:17, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 9 August 2020

• Please change the typo gt_gene_target to gt_target_gene (as in the example that follows). — kashmīrī ^TALK 04:54, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

   Fixed. However, this was just in the /doc page which was not protected, so you could have edited it directly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:36, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks, wasn't aware of this. — kashmīrī ^TALK 20:15, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

WHO Model List of Essential Medicines

In a recent discussion at WT:MED, it has been suggested that the WHO Essential Medicine status of a drug is better handled by an infobox element and a mention in body text, than warranting a long sentence in hundreds of article leads. Including that sentence is giving too much WP:WEIGHT to a characteristic of the drug which, while notable, is not nearly as important as, for example, its regulatory status or availability, neither of which are routinely documented in the lead.

The inclusion on the WHO EM list does not, sadly, convey any magical properties upon the drug: no manufacturer is compelled to make it widely and cheaply available to developing nations, and in fact many drugs on this list are widely unavailable outside of rich nations, and largely unaffordable. Nor is the inclusion of the drug an indication that it is among the safest and most effective of its class. For example, Amitriptyline is one of the few medicines on the list for depression, but, while effective, it is no longer a first-line choice in developed nations due to the high toxicity in overdose and low tolerability. In the UK, it is "not recommended" for depression, and mainly used for neuropathic pain in lower doses.

A further aspect of the EM list, which is not currently reflected in most mentions in articles, is that the list has "core" and "complementary" sub-lists. The former is the key one whereas the latter may include drugs that are more expensive or typically only prescribed by specialists.

Would it be possible to add an entry for WHO EMs, with values "Core", "Complementary" and some value perhaps to indicate if it is not on the list? Can we find an easy way to reference such entries (see here). -- Colin°^Talk 18:05, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@Colin: could you link that WTMED discussion? I can't find it at casual glance. However, I did find Talk:WHO Model List of Essential Medicines#List of essential medicines on each medicine’s article. DMacks (talk) 18:22, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

DMacks, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#WP:WEIGHT in drug articles currently. I like your suggestion on the WHO talk page that the infobox could populate an appropriate category or sub-category. -- Colin°^Talk 08:40, 17 August 2020 (UTC)