Textfile for databases

Textfile for databases

The Finnish Medicines Agency is compiling a list of substitutable medicinal products as individual products. Substitutable medicines are those with the same substitution group.

The Finnish Medicines Agency expresses no opinion on substitutability in relation to differences in the pack sizes of medicinal products with the same substitution group. The file does not include packages that have a marketing authorisation but no Nordic commodity number (VNR) number. This means that there might not be a match for each package, e.g. if only one of the two substitutable medicinal products is available.

In the database, the substitution group is in text format. The length of the column is six (6) characters, although the currently used codes only have four (4) characters.

Substitutable medicinal products are numbered consecutively. During a review of the list, some of the medicines were removed because their marketing authorisation had been revoked or because the product had been removed from the list. There might therefore be gaps in the numbering. Once used, a substitution group will not be re-introduced after it has been deleted.

File format

The file is sequential text file in which text fields are separated by a semi-colon. The first line is header line. The file is a text file using ISO 8859-1 charset.

The data content and field lengths of the list to be saved in the database are as follows:

Column Type and maximum length in source system Necessity Field comment
SUBSTITUUTIORYHMA VARCHAR2(6) NULL Substitution group number.
VNRNRO VARCHAR2(6) NULL Nordic -commodity number. Pack identification number.
PAKKAUSKOKO VARCHAR2(20) NOT NULL Pack size (e.g. 30). Pack size description in text format.
LAAKENIMI VARCHAR2(64) NOT NULL Trade name of the medicinal product.
VAHVUUS VARCHAR2(40) NOT NULL The strength of the medicinal product indicates the amount or concentration of the active agent in the product. Strength is in text format (amount and unit in the same field)
LAAKEMUOTONIMI VARCHAR2(75) NOT NULL Pharmaceutical form in Finnish Pharmaceutical forms are expressed as long pharmaceutical form names as presented in Standard Terms approved by the European Pharmacopoeia Commission.
HALTIJA VARCHAR2(61) NOT NULL Marketing authorization holder’s name.
ATCKOODI VARCHAR2(8) NOT NULL Anatomic Therapeutic Chemical Code.
SELITES VARCHAR2(100) NOT NULL

Explanation of the ATC code in Finnish indicating the name of the active substance or active substance group.