The NHPC and all its catalogues is in line with HIQA’s Data model for a national electronic medicinal product reference catalogue published on 5 January 2015.

The catalogue includes:

• product identification   
• medicinal product names
• strength
• route of administration
• pack information
• price     
• ingredient substances
• legal status
• form
• units of weight, volume, and strength
• supplier identity
• certain specified additive substances (excipients)
• reimbursement information

The data model is based on five ISO Standards collectively known as Identification of medicinal products (IDMP) standards. While there are six ‘core classes’, the NHPC currently meets all its use cases with the following:

Virtual therapeutic moiety

A virtual therapeutic moiety (VTM) is an abstract representation of an active medicinal ingredient or substance devoid of strength and form which when formulated as a medicinal product is intended for use in preventing or treating diseases in patients.

Virtual medicinal product

A virtual medicinal product (VMP) is a representation of a virtual therapeutic moiety associated with strength information and a route of administration. It represents a collection of clinically equivalent actual products with the same therapeutic moieties, strength, dose form and the same route of application. It is an abstract collection of actual medicinal products without supplier or trade name information. The strength may be expressed either as a unit of administration or as a concentration.

Actual medicinal product

An actual medicinal product (AMP) is a medicinal product that has been made available by a supplier. It is the medicinal product that is taken by a patient. The product is uniquely identified but not the pack size that it is made available in. Each AMP is associated with an identifiable supplier. It is possible that certain AMPs may not be available for direct dispensing as they may only be part of a combination pack. For example Estragel TTS 50 patches are only available as part of an Estracombi combination pack. An AMP may contain inactive ingredients, known as excipients, which may be of clinical significance.

Actual medicinal product pack

An actual medicinal product pack (AMPP) is the commercially produced packaged product which is supplied for direct patient use. The concept contains information on the pack size, the inner packaging, price and reimbursement information, and other administrative information linked to the concept. The name of an AMPP consists of the AMP contained within the AMPP and the pack size.