Multilex Drug Data File (Multilex DDF) is the UK’s most comprehensive and widely used drug knowledge base and is integrated into clinical systems across the whole healthcare community to support safer prescribing and dispensing and improve patient care.

Multilex DDF holds clinical and commercial information on more than 71,000 pharmaceutical products and packs and when integrated into clinical systems provides patient specific clinical decision support at the point of care.

When linked with the Electronic Health Record, the clinical decision support within Multilex DDF is able to carry out the following checks:

• Drug-drug interactions – to check if the medication about to be prescribed or dispensed interacts with the patient’s current medication. All drug-drug interactions are rated by severity.
• Sensitivities – to check if the medication about to be prescribed or dispensed contains the same or related active ingredients to any previous sensitivities recorded on the Electronic Health Record.
• Contraindications and precautions - to check the medication about to be prescribed or dispensed against the patient’s age, sex and any recorded medical conditions.
• Drug doubling – to check the medication about to be prescribed or dispensed against the ingredients of a patient’s current medication for duplication of ingredients.
• Therapeutic doubling – to check that the medication about to be prescribed or dispensed will not duplicate the effect of a patient’s current medication.

In addition, Multilex DDF provides patient safety messages for methotrexate and other high risk drugs, according to guidance by organisations such as the National Patient Safety Agency and the Commission on Human Medicines.

FDBE uses a wide variety of sources to ensure that Multilex DDF maintains its leading position. A range of publications are assessed and evaluated by our active triage team so that new medicines can be added to the database as they are launched. All clinical information is reviewed and updated regularly in accordance with strict editorial policies to ensure a consistent approach.

FDBE operates a Quality Management System that is certified to the latest ISO 9001:2000 standard and all operating procedures are regularly reviewed.

Multilex DDF contains a wide range of information on pharmaceutical products and appliances and holds more than 50,000 product and pack records including:

• all branded prescription medicines
• generic medicinal products
• Pharmacy and General Sales List medicines
• appliances included in the Drug Tariff
• supplementary and specialist dietary foods
• diagnostic and monitoring agents
• homœopathic remedies
• other NHS prescribable products

The data within Multilex DDF can be viewed in different ways - as short messages and alerts for active checking within clinical systems or as Multilex Monographs for more detailed reference. Multilex DDF contains information on product availability and prescribability such as:

• dentist prescribability
• equivalent products
• pack sizes
• equivalent products
• pack sizes
• manufacturers’ trade prices
• flavours (where appropriate)
• Drug Tariff (England and Wales) information
• Drug Tariff (Scotland) information
• Drug Tariff (Northern Ireland) information
• sugar free (oral liquid medicines)