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This is the discussion/talk page for: Template:Drugbox.

Archives
Sep.2005 - Jan.2007

Contents 1 Topics from 2007 1.1 Substructure search in eMolecules and PubChem added 1.2 Name parameters 1.3 Needs to have "other names" 1.4 Recombinant proteins 1.5 Chemical pages needing a structure drawing 1.6 New chemical formula style 1.7 SVG 1.8 Bug with formulas using Cl atom! (and possibly other two lettered atoms) 1.9 Suggested updates for antibodies and recombinant proteins 1.10 Dose 1.11 Multiple CAS numbers 1.12 Links to FDA labels at DailyMed 1.12.1 Revisit of this issue 1.13 Links to Orange Book 1.14 Time for new drugbox? 1.14.1 Single solution for consideration 1.14.2 Merge 1.15 Drugbox & Chembox 1.16 Drugbox, Chembox and handling of SMILES, InChI, and CID (PubMed ID) 1.17 Molecular mass, molecular weight and molar mass 1.18 Issues handling non-organic compounds 1.19 Add EINECS number parameter 2 Topics from 2008 2.1 Pregnancy category in drugbox template 2.2 Help with Alternative Names 2.3 class of drug or mechanism 2.4 Patent status or generic availability 2.5 Can't use ref with pregnancy_US 2.6 Retrofit topic-year headers 2.7 Patent information in the drug info-boxes? 2.8 No drug identifier vs missing value 2.9 Range of temperatures 2.10 Needs drug class added to drug box

[edit] Topics from 2007

[edit] Substructure search in eMolecules and PubChem added

I have added a SMILES based substructure search for eMolecules and PubChem. Please have a look at Cetirizine containing already SMILES code and this can been seen as an example.

Please comment on possible improvements. Things I considered

• How to improve visualization for SMILES? Smaller font, truncating it?
• Instead of search in should just use images for eMolecules and PubChem?
• Undisplaying SMILES, but keeping the external substructure search option.

JKW 13:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. Sorry to raise an objection, but wouldn't this clutter the template much? SMILES is rarely used as is, and wouldn't it really look bad on, say, large molecules such as paclitaxel or vancomycin :)? Fvasconcellos 14:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, the problem is bigger, the code breaks when there is a "]" or something like that in the SMILES, what occurs in some cases. I'd be interested in a solution, though. Just as a note, there is a discussion about moving all the 'chemboxes' to the new chembox new on the chemistry wikiproject, you might want to join that discussion. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree on both. First, SMILES is an option not a must and a workaround might be just having the link-out for the substructure search, but not displaying the SMILES for all entries. Second, breaking the Wiki-Code is a serious issue and can we not just add SMILES as raw data by using nowiki or pre tags? And in general a substructure search contains a lot of information, so I would like to keep it somehow. The same is also the case for InChI since this is indexed by Google as well. JKW 14:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I tried a nowiki tag without success, because this blocked the template replacements. I need help here. The SMILES code was excluded, but the search in eMolecules and PubChem was kept. JKW 14:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I have tried quite some things, but all seem to fail, or to just give an improperly encoded SMILES/InChI. I could code this for you (e.g. <smiles> </smiles>) which would create a proper link (I have done something like that for chemical formulae, see [1], chemistry part of that test-wiki). Might have a look tomorrow. Problem is going to be to convince Brion and Tim to enable these tags on en.wikipedia.org. See you around. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that would be great and I am pretty sure that some people like Egon, Rich and me would be quite happy to vote for it ! Beside, I think this goes beyond SMILES and this is a general template replacement issue and it should (in theory) be easy to convince people about a nowikified-template replacement. JKW 17:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Two more comments. First, if you check the Cetirizine example you will realize that the provided PubMed identifier is far from being unique, so we should definitely provide a SMILES substructure search link-out. Second, with respect for very large SMILES codes I am wondering if it is not possible to provide some dynamic HTML for allowing optional SMILES visualization. In general I think it should not be shown, but people should be able to copy it, if they really want. In fact, by executing the search at eMolecules and PubChem, they can copy the SMILES code from there. So, the actual solution is already very nice! JKW 18:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Something I forgot, if we want that Wikipedia articles are indexed via Google providing InChI code than we should maybe just add InChI and (non-unique?) SMILES code to the bottom of each drug article? There a DOI or PMID analog link-out template might be really helpful. This template should then link-out to eMolecules and PubChem. JKW 18:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see this wider, all chemicals. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

(undent)You can make your trick to work, though I would like to see the actual smiles. But, as the code is now, it does break. For a compound like maltose the coding does break, see User:Beetstra/DrugBoxTest. You need an urlencode. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:42, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for providing this test, who should we contact about this technical issue? JKW 18:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

And you are right, for general chemicals we must provide substructure searches, no way that PubChem identifiers help us here since there are just too many flavours of chemical compounds. And caused by this also too many identifiers, e.g. salts, tautomers, protonation states, etc. JKW 18:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, these do maybe not have a PubChem, but they do have a CAS, and some do have a PubChem as well.

I know how to solve the technical problems, you can have a look at [2], maltose is going correct there (it has been a testcase for long for me) .. but:

It runs again into another discussion. When linking to commercial sites, the answer is simple, that is a no go. But for government funded sites, or for whatever external site, the trouble is, when eMolecules gets the link, PubChem is not getting it, and when you do both, Ebi is not getting the link .. etc. etc. Some of these sites are payed by how many information they provide, so there is a bias there (though not as bad as when linking to one specific commercial supplier). I still think it has to be solved via a meta-page, not via a (maybe biased) single link in the 'chemboxes'. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

An ideal collaborative resource would be designed for large-scale data mining, contain curated historical data, and have data standards and deposition tools that could constantly bring in data from the published literature. Nature article ... yes, but we are not there ... lets start with what we have ... or found a new organization !;-) JKW 20:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Still, sometimes not starting is also a solution, one link may provoke another, and that is what spam is all about. I know it is convenient to have the links .. but as a strong defender against commercial-spam, I do believe I should also defend non-commercial institutes. Having said that, I repaired the links. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Do we have our own editable wikipedia chemical database thing, where we could search about anything and the results are going to be linked to our database pages? -- Boris 15:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I've programmed something like that, it is not standard built into the software of a mediawiki. You can see a running example here. It works like the special:booksources, a similar special page that is available on wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

How about something this (which is very primitive at the moment, but eventually will allow for edits, just in like Wikipedia, and advanced search as well)? -- Boris 16:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

@Boris: too unflexible and not general enough.

@Dirk: The special chemistry page is a good idea and looks already quite advanced. And this does still not solve our problem. Who should be contacted and can those people also ensure nonwikified template replacements avoiding problems with brackets etc.

@ALL: I do not care which substructure search service is provided, but my feeling is that the proposed solution of Dirk or a very fancy template might do the trick. And after contacting some other people can they please provide us with some timelines and concrete persons taking repsponsibilities? I do not want to spend my time discussing things over-and-over again. JKW 17:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Joerg, I already repaired the template, that is now working also with strange SMILES, just have a look. Don't expect a more extensive solution soon, except when you manage to poke Brion and Tim (who are 'those persons' you mention above) to activate the special:chemicalsources, what you can do in the meantime is just vote for the patch here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, lets see if we reach the critical mass for this extension. I have posted a 'please vote' message to some relevant eMail distribution lists. JKW 22:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name parameters

User:The Right Honourable recently added code for all uses of this template to have sections for British Approved Name, International Nonproprietary Name and United Stated Approved Names. May we discuss this first please, particularly before this perhaps gets implemented into lots of articles.

• Is this needed at all? Wikipedia:WikiProject Drugs/General/Naming of drug pages indicates that all drug articles should be named for the International Nonproprietary Name, so a "International Nonproprietary Name" parameter is surely merely duplication.
• The article already displays the article's name as a caption to the picture section, for most articles this is therefore already a display of the INN.
• Are there any drug articles not named for the INN ? If so, then do these articles need renaming to the INN ?
• All British Approved Names should now be the same as the INN. The only exceptions are for Adrenaline, and even here the BAN allows for the INN as an alternative (unlike the European Name which is at odds on the INN in this single example - so not a reason for all uses of the Infobox to need this feature). The BAN parameter will therefore essentially always duplicate the INN.
• Method of including former BAN and current USAN within an article's introduction are already standardised and described at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)#Drugs
  • Articles can mention previous or former BANs (before the INN was adopted) but this is better given in the text of the article, it certainly does not seem to be a currently active and thus relevant piece of information for inclusion within this Infobox.
  • The United States is perhaps unique in not generally adopting the INN. Articles currently seem to cover this well, so again is it really needed ? Remember wikipedia is worldwide, even if we restrict ourselves here in English Wikipedia as to our target audience, and for the vast majority of countries only the INN applies. The US then is just a minority isolated exception to this - albeit of course of worldwide importance (including drug development & usage) beyond "just" being a "minor" country :-)

• However, if any of these parameters are thought worthwhile, then a few further thoughts:
  • Keep the parameter names brief, ie "USAN" & "INN"
  • Perhaps the USAN, if thought a parameter needing to be included in the Drugbox Infobox at all, would then be an optional subheading of the INN/Article name which currently appears under the images
  • Alternatively the INN/Article name and USAN could appear as a top header for the template (see Template:Infobox Hospital ?

Hence perhaps:

• INN = {{Pagename}} <!-- used where the article name is not the same as the INN -->
• USAN = <!-- generally not defined -->

Paracetamol

USAN: Acetomorphine

Images IUPAC name and rest of current drugbox template

And in the case of Paracetamol:

• INN = Paracetamol
• USAN = Acetaminophen

I still doubt the need to specify INN/BAN, and invite thoughts as to why USAN is required ? David Ruben ^Talk 01:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I, for one, initially oppose the addition of such parameters. How would we present bupropion, for instance, whose INN was "amfebutamone" from 1974 through 2001, when the then-USAN bupropion was adopted by the WHO? (see note 1 in the bupropion article) In my humble opinion alternate names (i.e. BAN/USAN) should be mentioned in the lead. I'm open to arguments in their favor :) Fvasconcellos 01:42, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs to have "other names"

We need an "another names/commercial names" section, to show what it's called in the ol' commercial sector. James.Spudeman 14:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• No - drug official names (eg USAN) is one thing (and not enthusiastically sought in previous section), but list of brand names is not appropriate. For many drugs the list of country-specific brands gets to be very long, and in a narrow infobox this will cover screenfuls. This is best left in the article if any specific brands thought notable (and most are not as far as a worldwide encyclopaedia is concerned, other than 1st brand to market, or perhaps as this is English Wikipedia the 1st & leading brands in English-speaking countries). Even the list for paracetamol was too long for the article and now is a large full-width table at List of paracetamol brand names. David Ruben ^Talk 18:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recombinant proteins

There are a growing number of drugs that are actually recombinant proteins. IUPAC naming doesn't really make sense for these. In fact there are a number of articles with incorrect IUPAC names. I'm going to add a space to include the peptide sequence for these drugs. --Selket ^Talk 21:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd support that. As for IUPAC names, I try to correct them when I find them :) Fvasconcellos 22:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chemical pages needing a structure drawing

Should {{drugbox}} be modified to add drug articles that don't have structural images to Category:Chemical pages needing a structure drawing the way that {{chembox new}} does? --Ed (Edgar181) 20:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd support that. There's another really clever feature in that template I'd also support -- when you print a page, it knows not to print the URLs in the infobox. --Arcadian 21:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Hear, hear. Dirk is aware—let's see what he can do ;) Fvasconcellos 21:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll have a look. But beware, I might have to throw the whole code of the drugbox over to get certain things to work .. But I will make sure everything is backwards compatible. It may take some time, though, I want to try something first. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I planned a revamp of the thing, but that seems to be too difficult, so I have decided to first tweak this template. Compounds without images are now automagically categorised (give those picture-drawers something to do!), and when no image is available, no redlinked picture shows up anymore (cleaner view). URLs are now plainlinked, so they will print nicely. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:31, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... bit of a problem here. Amsacrine, acenocoumarol, ertapenem, fomivirsen and ganirelix, now showing up in Category:Chemical pages needing a structure drawing, do have structures—I should know, I made them! :) Any idea why this is going on? Fvasconcellos 14:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

OK—actually, all skeletal formulae (i.e., everything going in the "Image" field) are gone. Only images on the "Image2" field are displaying (see Paracetamol). Fvasconcellos 14:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

(undent)Yes, I see. Actually, this is why I was not coding directly, I wanted to recode {{chembox new}} into a coloured chembox, depending on a 'box = drugbox' type parameter .. Aargh .. indeed all images are gone, image2s only work. I'll have look (don't think I deleted .. oh wait .. yes .. I did .. haha) .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be OK now. That was that strange construct that was originally there, and which did not work with the new coding .. funny. Could you check if all is OK now? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

LOL! Seems fixed now—at least a random sample of articles suggests so. Whew, I *almost* saw my 500-odd structures going down the drain there... :) Not that I don't car for the work of our other molecular artists ;) I am sorry to inform, however, that image2 is broken now! Fvasconcellos 14:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, is there any way to "prefer" SVG over PNG? The template is now overriding SVG images with PNGs when they are available: see finasteride. Fvasconcellos 14:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Both fields are now working normally: see posaconazole—thanks Dirk! Categorization is still a bit off, however... too many pages transcluding Drugbox are apparently being added to Category:Chemical pages needing a structure drawing. Fvasconcellos 15:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The function is now similar to the {{chembox new}}, if image or image2 are supplied, those are used (even if they don't exist), when they are not supplied, it uses {{PAGENAME}}.png. If that one does not exist either, it is autocategorised. I may extend the code there a bit, for now I am clearing the pages transcluding the chembox carrying a "image = {{PAGENAME}}.png" (replacing with "image =") from the wikipedia, these thwart the autocategorisation, and are superfluous with this code (they were in the template-example, so were copy and pasted). Only 1440 to go. Enjoy the new drugbox! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:18, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Can't a bot do that? Sounds troublesome :) Fvasconcellos 16:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I am using WP:AWB for that, that is almost like running a bot-account, I only have to check when it makes a change, and press save (it is set to ignore pages that are unchanged). Down to 1366 already. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:28, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, OK then. They're starting to pop up on my watchlist, heh. Thanks again! Fvasconcellos 16:30, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

How about testosterone and demecarium bromide listed on category:Chemical pages needing a structure drawing? They do have valid pictures but it seems to remain categorized thus. --Rifleman 82 18:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I have observed the same problem. Would it perhaps be better to create a seperate category for drug articles requiring structure drawing? -Selket ^Talk 19:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I am still tweaking a bit, and categories tend to be slow in updating on wikipedia. If you see the article you see that they are not categorised.

Re:own category, I think you will find that the most active chemical structure drawers are in the chemicals wikiproject, and I think this is a typical case of something that could be done in a mixed effort, in the end the category is supposed to be empty anyway. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I like making them, happy to help. Should we at some point think about migrating to SVGs? -Selket ^Talk 19:59, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

That depends on what you are drawing, If I am correct, the line-drawings are best as svg, the ball-and-stick/spacefilling best as png (or was it the other way around). Ben Mills is very experienced with this. There are some upgrades possible to this template still, I might have a look later, it is working for now, the picture makers have some work to do. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

SVG is indeed better for line models, and PNG for the others. I've always done SVGs—the smaller footprint is well worth the trouble. Ben's been doing some excellent SVGs lately as well; his "style" is my idea of a "standard", if we'd ever have one for structural formulae. Calvero and Ayacop also make theirs SVGs if I'm not mistaken. I'd dare say there is already a trend towards vector formulae :) Fvasconcellos 20:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

(undent)I have practically finished cleaning all the "image = {{PAGENAME}}.xxx"-parameters in the drugboxes (replace them with a filename if the image exists, removing them if the image does not exist. I tried to test for existence of images in the drugbox, but that seems to fail (I fail to understand why my {{#ifexist:Image:{{{image|}}}|true|false}} returns false while the image is there). I will continue to test that. That does result in some pages still not being categorised while there is no picture. So if you encounter a page with a redlinked picture, please either clear the image-parameter, or draw the picture. Checking them all is going to be a massive task on 1626 drugboxes, since I can not automate that easily with AWB (I have to check them all visually .. the task I am running can be done semi-automated. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Anything to do with the fact that the images are on commons? Because I usually find the commons image or upload to commons when none is found. --Rifleman 82 14:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Could be. Testing:

• Image:Scopolamine.png exists in wikipedia, {{#ifexist:Image:Scopolamine.png|true|false}} = true
• Image:Fluoxetine-2D-skeletal.png exists in commons, {{#ifexist:Image:Fluoxetine-2D-skeletal.png|true|false}} = false. Bingo!

Ah .. OK .. so that is the trouble. Too bad, we cannot test for image existence in this way. That may even mean that in some cases the existence of {{PAGENAME}}.png gets tagged wrongly. In that case the image parameter has to be used, that will make it disappear from the category. Unless parserfunctions comes up with a solution. So be it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Argh! I upload all my images to Commons, that's why some articles they are used in were showing up in the category. Too bad... Fvasconcellos 14:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Update The category now seems to be updating correctly, and IMHO looks surprisingly manageable. Woo-hoo! Fvasconcellos 15:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Forgot to say, I asked someone who is also developing the mediawiki software, and it is indeed impossible to check whether an image exists on the commons. It seems there is a patch underway, as soon as that gets implemented, I will use that function, makes it even better. There are now still redlinked images, so the actual number is bigger than now. Happy drawing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New chemical formula style

I'm going to do the same thing (create a category) for pages that use the old chemical formula style. (Category:Drug pages needing formula fontification. -Selket ^Talk 19:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

That is excellent. I can't believe there are only 45, though. Fvasconcellos 19:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Because the category is transcluded, it only gets added when the page is rendered. We need to wait until people view all of the pages in question. More are popping up. --Selket ^Talk 19:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I don't know whether you've noticed, but some extra whitespace is now being added to the top of articles using the new formula style. Might it have anything to do with the new category? Fvasconcellos 23:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes it might. I'll take care of it. Also, I've begun fixing them with AWB, but I don't know what to do with the formulas that have congugated acids (e.g., Amiodarone: C₂₅H₂₉I₂NO₃ . HCl). Are we moving to a purely empirical formula for these, or should I leave them? What's the consensus? -Selket ^Talk 23:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I have the same issue with ion. There is no way to add a charge to the current template. This seems fixable, though.

That didn't do it... Is this OK instead? It god rid of the whitespace for me. As for the formulae, I prefer free base whenever possible (drop the acid), but I don't think there is a consensus. Fvasconcellos 23:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If it works, it works. I think I like the freebase too, but I'm going to continue ignoring them for now. --Selket ^Talk 00:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I've seen the results, and I personally don't really like them. The different colors makes it look very mickey mouse. Over at wikiproject chemistry, we discussed this and I think quite a few were not in favor of linking chemical formulae. Does it really help improve accessibility to wikify bromine and nitrogen? If you don't know what it is already, reading the article probably won't help your understanding of the drug. --Rifleman 82 06:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's useful for people who know some chemistry but not too much. I think a lot of the people who care about the structures of various drugs fall into this category. Granted, it is unlikely that people are going to need the carbon link, but when I came across Gadodiamide (an MR contrast agent) for the first time I saw Gd in the formula and had no idea what that was. I knew it wasn't gold, bit that was about it. I ended up needing to google for a periodic table and then try to find Gd, then I went back to wikipedia to see what the deal was with Gadolinium. I do agree that the colors can be a bit much, but I think it can serve as a useful key for the renderings (see Gadodiamide again) provided that we color them consistantly. I have tried to use the same colors, but I can't speak for everyone. --Selket ^Talk 06:41, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

In the chemistry articles we try not to colour/link chemical formulae. I personally don't like the elements being linked in a formula because it is distracting. I think it is better to talk about the constituent elements in the text. It is mostly C, H, N, which I expect the majority of people to know what that means, and for the stranger elements I find it more convenient to link them in the text. "Mercuryoxide (HgO) is an oxide of mercury" (if you also put chemical formula into that sentence, people should have enough information). For the drugs it is similar, most elements are quite general, and the gadolinium in Gadodiamide should be named and explained in the text anyway (I think it even should be linked in the intro).

About the colouring, it gives a very, as it was described, Mickey Mousey feeling to see the colours in the pictures and the formulae, although I do understand that for people outside chemistry it does clarify. Maybe the medicine should get a section with a description of the molecule, synthesis and (bio)chemical function (where I mean a description of why it does what it does, for as far known). I think that explains more than colouring of the elements matching the picture. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the new format, because (1) it enforces rigor and consistency, which facilitates reuse and (2) it makes that line look different than the others, which makes it easier to orient the eye. But perhaps it would address the concern if the colors for the elements were less saturated. For example, instead of oxygen using "232 70 70" as it currently does, it could use something like "139 0 0". (A useful list of color codes is available at web colors.) --Arcadian 15:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there are several other templates for chemical elements. That said, the majority of pages written by members of chemistry wikiproject simply use super and subscripts. I have made my comments regarding the wikilinking of chemical formulae known already. To reiterate, it adds little or no value to the article to link to nitrogen or bromine, and if something unusual such as gadolinium is a part of the drug molecule, it should be discussed in text, per Beetstra.

[edit] SVG

Fvasconcellos, would you please share your method of making SVGs? I do agree they are superior, and that they should be used where possible. However, I'm not able to find a good way to export from ChemSketch to any svg editor, either through the clipboard or through EMF/WMFs.

That said, There are a lot of poor quality SVGs out there which have replaced better quality PNGs. Content is key, and not the format. --Rifleman 82 14:31, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

My method, despite (IMHO) good results, is not very efficient: I export as TIFF from ChemSketch at 600 dpi, import the file into Inkscape and trace the structure. I trace the structure manually, using the Path tool and angle constraints—this is very important, as the built-in automatic tracer gives low-quality results—and add atom labels as text. For 600 dpi TIFFs, I use the following Inkscape style settings:

• 6 px line width for bonds
• 82 pt Arial for atom labels
• 65 pt Arial for subscript/superscript labels

Works for me :) If you have access to Adobe Illustrator, Ben Mills' cut-and-past method sounds far less troublesome—he outlines it on his Talk page. Fvasconcellos 15:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes I have seen Ben's talk page prior. Like him, I'm not going to spend a bunch of money for Wikipedia.

I must say your work *is* excellent. But this method takes too much time for me. I feel that "good enough" is better than "perfect" later, and given my limited time, I'll stick with ChemSketch --> TIFF --> Irfanview --> PNG for now. It only takes a minute or so to draw a molecule and convert to PNG with this method. I think the results are wholly acceptable. --Rifleman 82 15:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

There is an alternative that is quicker and free but not so polished. BKchem is a simple freeware molecule editor. You can draw by hand or import from several import formats then export direct to SVG. There is a default 10px margin, which works well. For example, Dronedarone-2D.svg was created by entering the SMILES string from PubChem, rotating it and pressing Save. You can compare that with Fvasconcellos' version at Dronedarone.svg and Jfdwolff's PNG at Dronedarone.png. Oh, and if you want to know why there are three diagrams for one drug: Fvasconcellos and I both created versions on Commons and then discovered that Jfdwolff had beaten us to it. I really should get round to deleting mine, which certainly isn't the best of the three. For complex diagrams, like Sirolimus.svg, Fvasconcellos is the master! Colin°^Talk 18:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you :) Fvasconcellos 15:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I tried that once, but didn't really like it. Perhaps I'm too accustomed to ChemSketch, but in the brief period I played with it, I couldn't really make it do what I needed to do/do nice structures with it. Still waiting for a way to copy directly into inkscape from ChemSketch through the clipboard. --Rifleman 82 18:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

To do it with ChemSketch, instead of exporting to TIFF, export to Windows Metafile (*.wmf). This can be imported into Inkscape as a vector object. It will not include the text lables, so you will have to add them in Inkscape but it gives very nice results. (See: Halometasone) --Selket ^Talk 16:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm strangely unable to import WMFs to Inkscape. Wonder what could be wrong... Are you using an extension? Fvasconcellos 22:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm using Inkscape 0.45, built Feb 5 2007 from Help->About on Windows XP. I was able to do it with either File-Open or File->Import. What version are you using? --Selket ^Talk 22:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

0.43, Nov 23 2005. Time for an update :) Fvasconcellos 22:55, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

OK—updated, and your method is officially approved! :) I still need to tweak the settings on both ChemSketch and Inkscape a bit, but, man, is that a time-saver. Thanks for sharing! Fvasconcellos 01:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bug with formulas using Cl atom! (and possibly other two lettered atoms)

I noticed a serious bug with this otherwise fine template. For some reason, it seems to change the place of Cl atom by putting it one off target in the formula.

Examples: Chloramphenicol formula is given as | C=11 | H=12 | N=2 | O=5 | Cl=2 but shown in DrugBox as C11H12N2Cl2O5

Clozapine formula is given as | C=18 | H=19 | Cl=1 | N=4 but shown in DrugBox as C18H19N4Cl

Ketamine formula is given as | C=13 | H=16 | Cl=1 | N=1 | O=1 but shown in DrugBox as C13H16NClO

Zopiclone formula is given as | C=17 | H=17 | Cl=1 | N=6 | O=3 but shown in DrugBox as C17H17N6ClO3

Sodium_thiopental formula is given as | C = 11 | H = 17 | N = 2 | Na = 1 | O = 2 | S = 1 but shown in DrugBox as C11H17N2O2SNa

Also:

Fluoxetine formula is given as | C=17|H=18|F=3|N=1|O=1 but shown in DrugBox as C17H18NF3O

I'm sure there are others as well. I don't know what's wrong with the last one, but the others seem to somehow originate from the number of letters (or so it seems).

In my opinion, this is a serious bug, because it changes the formula, making it impossible to use it as such, for instance, for Google searches. Hopefully somebody can easily fix this, as the DrugBox seems to be otherwise perfectly OK.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.181.234.205 (talk • contribs)

The formulas in the infoboxes are sorted into a standard order (Hill system), but you are right, the order seems to be off here (though not in the way you expect if I read your comment correctly). Formula's should be sorted C first, H second, all other elements in alphabetical order, in which case

| C=11 | H=12 | N=2 | O=5 | Cl=2 should display as C18H19Cl2N2O5

I'll have a look and resort them, if others agree. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I see now... so the order of input is not even supposed to be the order shown in the box. It's a bit confusing, but if that's how it's supposed to work, then it's fine. I actually got confused when on some page (which I already forgot) the text showed the "usual" order, and the DrugBox showed another order which provided 0 Google hits. When I browsed the pages through quickly I made a wrong conclusion of that being somehow linked to two-lettered markings, which was because (by a random choise) I found that only two-lettered atoms were in the "wrong" places. When I found Fluoxetine, I thought maybe my original theory was not necessarily right, or maybe there were some other bug as well.

But if things are working as they have been planned to work, then everything is OK.

However I think this should be mentioned in Notes on use part. Now the example is actually showing that the order of input is also the order of output. Had there been some info about Hill arrangement, I wouldn't have suspected a bug. So a couple of lines to describe how it works would be a good help there. Just a suggestion...

Maybe there could be a way to mention this in the DrugBox also? Of course many databases are linked to the box, but just copy-pasting the formula might cause some problems... For instance, Zopiclone is in the DrugBox C17H17N6ClO3, but in PubChem it is C17H17ClN6O3. With PubChem this isn't a problem, because it is linked, but I hope everyone could see my point here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.181.234.205 (talk) 21:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

The order of entry of any of the parameters is not important (could place H=1 as 1st parameter, the drug name next and C=12 as the last parameter after pregancy details). I agree perhaps the notes should be ordered in the sequence that the various elements will be listed - just edit the /doc subpage :-) David Ruben ^Talk 20:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested updates for antibodies and recombinant proteins

There are a large number of drugs that are not small molecules. I would propose adapting this template to take a multiple choice "type" field that can account for this. For example, antibodies should probably not show up in Category:Chemical pages needing a structure drawing. I had previously proposed (but didn't get around to developing) a sequence field to replace IUPAC name on recombinant proteins. This is an example of the sort of thing that could be fixed with a "type" field. Any thoughts (objections)? --Selket ^Talk 02:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

How about a field such as | biological=yes/no? I don't know about the code required, though. Fvasconcellos 02:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I can code it, I just wanted to clear major changes with the community first. If I do re-code it, I will make sure it is reverse compatible so that nothing has to be done to the old articles. --Selket ^Talk 03:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I support the general idea, but let's not rush into implementation, since this will have a wide impact, and I could see some problems handling large peptides. What specific fields did you have in mind? --Arcadian 04:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

For peptides: sequence, protein from which derived; for antibodies: mono- vs. poly-clonal, source organism, target protein. Replace Category:Chemical pages needing a structure drawing with Category:Proteins needing image or some such category. Any other ideas? --Selket ^Talk 07:18, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out, that there is a {{protein}}. I think that box can do that part of the trick. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Whatever. I have just been bold, and added a tag to {{protein}}, and did a recat on {{chembox new}} and {{drugbox}}. They have now their own category, which is part of the master-category Category:Chemistry pages needing pictures. It will take some time to (re-)populate, but this cleans it out quite a bit. Hope this helps! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out that WP:MCB have their own Image Request page, I think they should handle proteins and whatnot. Any thoughts? Recats did make things more manageable BTW, at least in my opinion. Fvasconcellos 14:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I have been bold, and added a section to their image request with this category. I think this makes it indeed more manageable, though for the drugbox and chembox new the type of images requested is just the same. I guess people from the projects can now find their own image-requests, while the top-level category does neatly connect the projects and gives people a quick way of finding the people who are active in picture drawing in the other projects. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:26, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Dirk. We should also think about what to do about images for the antibodies. Any ideas? --Selket ^Talk 03:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be no objection to the general idea, Selket, so if you wanted to put those fields in, it would probably be okay. --Arcadian 19:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, its a major change, so I'm going to debug it pretty thoroughly in my user space first. It may be a day or two before I make the changes "go live". --Selket ^Talk 20:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• crazy idea warning* Why don't we have a "MabBox" or "Drugbox monoclonal antibody"? We do have something like 200 monoclonal antibody articles. (I do realize this contradicts my previous suggestion of a "field".) Fvasconcellos 22:09, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

So, I added at drugbox-mab template per, Fvasconcellos' suggestion. It's not as elegant as a flag but much easier to code. Feel free to add any other fields I didn't think of. --Selket ^Talk 03:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

P.S. check out Bevacizumab for sample usage --Selket ^Talk 03:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, resonable idea, but are formula, melting points etc relevant for a protein ? Would an optional parameter in Template:Drugbox (that is normally not specified but defaults to say "drug") that if set to "mab" turns off various parameters not be an alternative method of coding ? (I think an alternative parameter name is mentioned higher up in this discussion). Otherwise it will be harder maintaining the 2 drug infoboxes. David Ruben ^Talk 20:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dose

could someone add a dose thing please, i have no idea how to do it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by The Right Honourable (talk • contribs) 02:23, 17 March 2007.

WP:MEDMOS discourages the addition of such information to articles. How do you think it would be useful? Fvasconcellos 03:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple CAS numbers

I'm trying to clean up Methcathinone a bit by moving CAS numbers from the text to the drugbox. There are four listed and I'd like to have them appear with notes beside them like (racemic base), but still have the links work. CAS_supplemental seems not to do the links though, and CAS_number tries to put the comments in the links, even if the comment is surrounded by nowiki tags. Is there a simple way to do this, or do I need to just make the links manually?--Eloil 08:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Use CAS_Number for the 1st number. Then additional numbers in CAS_supplemental using {{CAS|xxx}} template to create links. See this edit to Methcathinone. David Ruben ^Talk 13:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Links to FDA labels at DailyMed

Now that FDA labels are available at DailyMed, how about linking to these from the DrugBox? If you do this, you would pass the drug's generic name as the search term to DailyMed, then the user would select which preparation to view. Examples are:

• http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/search.cfm?startswith=sumatriptan
• http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/search.cfm?startswith=reserpine

Badgettrg 20:35, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

We should compare this with the licence_EU and licence_US fields as discussed earlier at #New Licence field. Colin°^Talk 20:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

<edit conflict - that was quick Colin> Does not this link provide essentially the same function as the licence_US parameter link (http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/drugsatfda/index.cfm?fuseaction=Search.Search_Drug_Name) - i.e. to a datasheet. If so, then is one link system to be preferred (i.e. do we need change how the licence_US parameter is linked?), or does it vary drug by drug as to which gives the better information for a general readership (i.e. do we need an alterative parameter)? David Ruben ^Talk 20:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, last time I checked, DailyMed (which I've used as a reference for iohexol) didn't provide as many information sheets as AccessData. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:48, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

If so, then there is no need duplicate links for the same information and lets leave licence_US as is and no need additional link system :-) David Ruben ^Talk 20:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe this is really so—just found the following disclaimer on the DailyMed website:

At the present time this Web site does not contain a complete listing of labels for approved prescription drugs.

Nice idea though. Drugs@FDA (AccessData) also does not contain labels for all Rx-only drugs available in the U.S., but there's no such disclaimer over there :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 21:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revisit of this issue

I think we should reconsider this. Drugs@FDA is good, but for different purposes. Relying on Drugs@FDA for labeling information presents two problems

1. The label "License data" is unlikely to suggest to anyone that this link will lead to a package insert. It sounds like it is going to lead so some legal stuff.
2. Even if someone happens to take this link, frequently they still have to follow additional links at the FDA website to reach the labeling information for their drug.

I proposed the that DailyMed link be added and be labeled along the lines of "Package insert (US)" or maybe "Labeling information (US)". Admitted, this new source does not always have a label, but it can be an extended field and the editor only populate this field when the label is available.

Currently Wikipedia does not do a good job of linking the user to good, basic drug information. Badgettrg 17:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

DailyMed seems like a good source, but it isn't currently widely used, and I think we need to be conservative about adding fields to the infoboxes. I'd recommend proceeding in four steps. (1) Start adding links in the External Links section to a few pages. (2) Write a DailyMed article, to make it easier for people to understand the source. (3) If nobody complains after a month or so, then build a standalone template (like Template:Dailymed) and start using that, though still keeping the link at the bottom of the page. (4) If, after using it for another month or so in that format, then repropose it here, and if there are no major objections, then we could add it to the template. In addition to generating consensus, the experience we'd gain in using the stand-alone DailyMed template would help us figure out the right way to set up the parameters if/when it was added to the DrugBox.--Arcadian 21:42, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Care needed not to duplicate info that this site uses that comes from FDA itself, and likewise not have duplicating parameters of Licence_US parameter and for this site. Also DailyMed lists for one specific brand of product, rather than the drug itself (no acetaminophen, but loads of "acetaminophen with codeine"). However Arcardian's suggestion for template seems sensible and I have created a Template:DailyMed (use of not just capitalised 1st letter is in keeping with Template:eMedicine, Template:WhoNamedIt etc). David Ruben ^Talk 23:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

As a single example of use, see this edit to Pregabalin article. David Ruben ^Talk 23:59, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. --Arcadian 01:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed—a good chance for me to revisit my previous opinion :) Do you think there is a rationale for adding {{DailyMed}} to a few more pages as a trial, or should we start "spamming" it across the board? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Links to Orange Book

Any interest in incorporating links to the FDA's orange book (http://www.fda.gov/cder/ob/) listings on particular drugs to the template? Remember 13:47, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It might be interesting, although Drugs@FDA (already in the template, see above) probably provides information more relevant to the reader. It is an excellent source for checking generic availability and patent stuff, though. I'd like to hear more on this. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time for new drugbox?

I've been noticing recently that WP has many articles on combinations and associations—we have unique articles on co-trimoxazole, ampicillin/sulbactam, quinupristin/dalfopristin, co-codamol and Preterax (which should probably be moved to perindopril/indapamide), just to name a few. Drugbox isn't, in my humble opinion, the most appropriate option for these, as there is no real need for a structure, such comprehensive chemical data etc. as these will be in the individual components' articles; indeed, many articles on associations do not transclude {{Drugbox}}.

So, I have been considering the possibility of our creating a new template for combination medications. It could be a condensed form of the regular Drugbox, with some modifications. The modifications I've thought would be appropriate so far are:

• ATC code would be the only required identifier;
• The "Chemical data" section would be eliminated altogether (as in my current draft) or made optional;
  • Should it be made optional, perhaps a plain "Chemical formula" would no longer place the page in Cat:Drug pages needing formula fontification, so as to allow C_nH_nO_n · C_nH_nO_n-style formulae?
• The imagename = parameter would become compoundname = , to more intuitively allow changing the drugbox name on articles with no image;
• Perhaps most importantly, the "IUPAC name" section would become a "Combination of" section to note the components (identified by component1 = , component2 = etc. parameters).

I have boldly created a draft in my userspace here, and a working example may be seen here; I've chosen ampicillin/sulbactam. I would greatly welcome any input on this: a clean-up of the code (I've still a lot to learn WRT templates), suggestion of other modifications, and most importantly, whether or not this is a good idea! I think so: {{Drugbox-mab}} worked beautifully and is currently in use in over a hundred articles. If anyone would rather post at WT:PHARM, that's fine by me. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 21:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I like it the idea. I don't have the ability to clean up the coding, but I agree that this is needed. Remember 21:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I am pro, too. All new and old drug boxes should be described and categorized for making their context clear. JKW 21:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea, but rather than creating a new infobox, it probably would be more maintainable if it were handled like monoclonal antibodies, and add a new mode to the existing box. Are we considering Sultamicillin a single substance, or two? --Arcadian 23:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, something like Drugbox-mab is what I meant; a "sub-Drugbox", separate in practice. Sultamicillin is the single-compound form of ampicillin/sulbactam; it's an ester of both rather than a mixture of both. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I dig it. I think it would be nice to keep it in one template though, as Arcadian has suggested. How would multiple bioavailability or metabolism entries be handled for each substance cleanly, in any case? (Ccroberts^{( t · c · g )} 23:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

Judicious use of </br> tags, as is (IMHO) standard Drugbox practice? :D We'd probably name it {{Drugbox-something}}—{{Drugbox-combination}} or {{Drugbox-association}}, then? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, would you rather see something like the top right or something like the bottom right? I'm afraid of introducing too much into the Drugbox (i.e. drug class) and obviating the need for actual article content :D Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:09, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Combination of

Perindopril and indapamide

Combination of
Perindopril	ACE inhibitor
Indapamide	Thiazide diuretic

Ya, I think top right would be sufficient. {{Drugbox-combination}} sounds good, also. (Ccroberts^{( t · c · g )} 00:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC))

Good job Fvasconcellos. I would go further in the trimming as all the pharmacology section details are meaningless for combinations, i.e. Bioavailability, Metabolism, Half-life, Extretion, as currently has set up (yes each component has specific values for these parameters, but I don't think it makes any sense for the combination). Pregnancy & legal categories of the whole combination do make sense (Paracetamol/Codeine 500/8 is over-the counter, but 500/30 is prescription only in UK). Do we keep the pictures, if so, then each should have a caption parameter - and what about combinations of more than two products? I suggest dropping teh pictures entirely (there are the links to each component's article)

My preference, but I think unworkable, would be one drugbox but with a controlling parameter, perhaps "infobox_type" (set to "mab", "combo" or left blank), which hides unnecessary parameters. However this would make each parameter conditional (on top of current conditions of whether parameter defined or not) and all pipes (|) must be converted to templated {{!}}. This would make the template very large in its coding and difficult for all but the most experienced template editors to maintain. I'm happy to give it a go (big gulp) but please after my holiday (away after tomorrow for 11 days)...... but I would suggest far easier is to set up a restricted daughter template as discussed above and currently in place for {{Drugbox-mab}}.

I think "combo" in template title and "comboname" as a parameter is better than "compound" which is open to misinterpretation (amlodipine beselate is a compound, but not in sense we mean here of two separate pharmacologically active agents)

I've trimmed it further, see User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo, but I like the idea of component and class of agent - clearly 2 items are obligatory for a combinatin item, and I've added ability for optional 3rd.David Ruben ^Talk 02:38, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Excellent work, David! I would have trimmed the pharmacology section myself but thought it might be too much. As for removing the images, also a good decision although there are some images of mixture/combination products in use (see dimenhydrinate for an example).

• Thank you so much for adding room for an optional 3rd component—I wouldn't know how to do so, and where would that leave Cortisporin? :D
• comboname = is fine—pretty intuitive :)
• I'm still undecided WRT a simple "component 1 and component 2" v. "component/class, component/class..." I would welcome further input on that.
• Now, about making a single drugbox with a mode = or type = parameter—I agree that would probably be best in the long run, but would certainly make the template even more difficult to maintain. I would certainly be no help in the process, as my knowledge of template syntax is very basic, but if you'd like (be willing ?) to take it up I would not object in the slightest. I do think that creating {{Drugbox-combo}} would be a nice, readily implementable short-term solution while we, say, prepare for and discuss future implementation of a single drugbox. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree set up {{Drugbox-combo}}, can always later be changed to simply call a reved-up do-everything {{Drugbox}} passing relevant parameter values.

Still would need convincing re the images; the example of dimenhydrinate is a case in point, which molecule is which ?

Final thoughts re "component 1 and component 2" v. "component/class, component/class...".

1. 1st option inserts the word "and" between the two items, but would need some coding if to allow for 3 or more items (have to use commas except for final conjunction) - yuk. Whereas "component/class, component/class..." simply has one row per item and is much easier to code a simple conditional display/hide (indeed probably should allow for upto 4 items just in case - I'll do this now).
2. In the "component/class, component/class...", which is more important (ie which is the heading)? It could be argued that it is the class effect that is the most important and gets shown in left-column, with the actual class-member component in the right-column (eg Seretide is important for being a long-acting bronchodilator and a steroid, and really not to us doctors for having fluticasone as the steroid rather than beclometasone). Likewise "FuciBet" is Fusidic acid antibiotic and Beclometasone, but if Mometasone steroid and Neomycin antibiotic had been selected for a combo product (lets say "NeoMom"), then I doubt if of much difference (its a potent steroid with antibiotic that is being sought). That did not work - many class-of-drug articles are very long in their wording compared to the drugs themselves (eg see Seretide example now used in my subpage's instructions), will need be Drug on left and Class on right.

Anyway what do others think ? I'll happily code up any finally decided decisions on my return, else feel free to move my subpage User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo to {{Drugbox-combo}} to go live :-) David Ruben ^Talk 19:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... OK then. Left would be drug and right would be class—fine by me. I'll wait a couple of days before going live, see if there is no further commentary. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Single solution for consideration

Ok so I have this version for a drug-combo template, but I also have had a go at a merged single infobox to combine the current main Drugbox with options for Drug-combinations. The advantage of this single merged approach is twofold:

1. having in concept just the single template (general editors need only lookup the one template) and
2. the fact that current Drugbox, Drugbox-combo & Drugbox-mab templates would all have a large number of commonly shared parameters (licensing, administration routes etc) that would be awkward to maintain across the multiple templates.

At top of this thread are some points for and against such merged single infobox, so what do people think ? Below are some examples of how single template can be used for both single and combination products:

First off for Salbutamol: User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo

{{User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo
| IUPAC_name = 2-(hydroxymethyl)-4-[1-hydroxy-
2-(tert-butylamino)ethyl]phenol
| image = Salbutamol-racemic-2D-skeletal.png
| CAS_number = 18559-94-9
| ATC_prefix = R03
| ATC_suffix = AC02
| ATC_supplemental = {{ATC|R03|CC02}}
| PubChem = 2083
| DrugBank = APRD00553
| C=13 | H=21 | N=1 | O=3  
| molecular_weight = 239.311
| bioavailability = 
| protein_bound =
| metabolism = [[Liver|Hepatic]]
| elimination_half-life = 1.6 hours
| excretion = [[Renal|Renal]]
| pregnancy_AU = A
| pregnancy_US = C
| pregnancy_category =  
| smiles = HOc1c(CHO)cc(C(HO)NC(C)(C)(C))cc1
| legal_AU = S3
| legal_CA =OTC
| legal_UK = POM
| legal_US = Rx-only
| legal_status = 
| routes_of_administration = Oral, inhalational, [[Intravenous therapy|IV]]
}}

And then for Fluticasone/salmeterol (Seretide) User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo

{{User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo
| type              = combo
| combo_name        = Fluticasone/salmeterol
| component1        = Fluticasone
| class1            = [[Glucocorticoid]]
| component2        = Salmeterol
| class2            = [[Long acting beta-adrenoceptor agonist]]
| CAS_number = 
| ATC_prefix = 
| ATC_suffix = 
| PubChem = 3081276
| DrugBank = 
| pregnancy_AU = A
| pregnancy_US = C
| pregnancy_category =  
| legal_AU = S3
| legal_CA = 
| legal_UK = POM
| legal_US = Rx-only
| legal_status = 
| routes_of_administration = inhalational
}}

• If people are happy with this single approach then, question is whether to also merge in Drugbox-mab?
• Of course before going live with this, I'd like a few others to help check the template coding is robust and "fit for purpose" as the current Drugbox coding. The Drugbox template is of course protected to prevent any disruption, and I'd hate to get this wrong :-) David Ruben ^Talk 00:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow. That's...excellent :) Sure makes a case for WP:BOLD! I'd like to see the "Chemical data" section optional so as not to make it empty, though; is that possible? If it really works than I'd go for merging drugbox-mab as well and making the elusive unified Drugbox :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I think your asking that the Section header of "Chemical data" becomes optional and gets hidden too (given that all its parameters are hidden), yes I'd missed out decission control on that and now so done. David Ruben ^Talk 15:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I've still got some thinking to do re the merge of all chemboxes. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I was feeling brave and I've now tried to include Template:Drugbox-mab, just set type to "mab" rather than combo.

User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo

{{User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo
| type =mab
| image             = Infliximab_structure2.jpg
| source            = chimeric/mouse/human
| target            = TNF
| CAS_number = 170277-31-3
| ATC_prefix = L04
| ATC_suffix = AA12
| ATC_supplemental = 
| PubChem = 
| DrugBank = BTD00004
| C=6428 | H=9912 | N=1694 | O=1987 | S=46
| molecular_weight = 144190.3 g/mol
| bioavailability = 100% (IV)
| protein_bound = 
| metabolism = [[reticuloendothelial]] system
| elimination_half-life = 9.5 days
| pregnancy_category = B
| legal_status = 
| routes_of_administration = IV
}}

Coding for this trial at User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo. If those with the knowledge could preview the coding for bugs and give it a testing, I'd be grateful. Then if the consensus we can go live with this, and depreciate Drugbox-mab (making it redirect to the new Drugbox initially) David Ruben ^Talk 21:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

No-one up for reviewing the code? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, lets, make this easier - could a few non-techies (i.e. must be everyone given no one responded so far) try out a few tests on existing drug articles with User:Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo (ie use the described template but use {{Davidruben/Templates/Drugbox-combo as the template calling name and use "Show preview" rather than "Save page"):

1. Are the instructions on use of the 3-flavours ("type" not defined, or set as either "combo" or "mab") understandable ?
2. Does this all work in the way one expects the template to work ?
3. Any glaring errors occuring ? David Ruben ^Talk 19:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Now running on ampicillin/sulbactam, perindopril/indapamide and co-codamol. No problems so far. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, have I over coded in restricting pictures for combos? Given the example of Ampicillin/sulbactam - either the pictures are not needed in that article at all (as they duplicate those in sub-component articles), or should be allowed in the infobox (making it a long infobox and perhaps look untidy) or remain as pictures within the text & outside of this infobox ? David Ruben ^Talk 23:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I quite like the images in table format in this specific case, as I put them there :) I do think the parameter could be left in, just made optional, in case an article comes up where an image might be useful, e.g. dimenhydrinate: we have no article on 8-chlorotheophyllinate (and I frankly don't see a reason for one to be created), so if one wanted to find out its structure there'd be nowhere to go on-wiki. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Ok I think, if no one objects, that it is time {{Template:Drugbox}} gets upgraded and incorporates in the features of {{Template:Drugbox-mab}} - see this proposal. However I note that several languages link to this, so only seems polite to add some merge tag warnings and wait a day or two.

• Initially I would edit {{Template:Drugbox-mab}} to call {{Template:Drugbox}}, setting "type=mab" in the process.
• Then articles could have the infobox call edited:

From: 
  {{Drugbox-mab
  ...
To:
  {{Drugbox
  | type = mab
  ...

• Finally if we ever get to no articles calling Drugbox-mab (and there are a lot of MAB articles out there), then Drugbox-mab would be fully depreciated and converted into a redirect (which would preserve edit history unlike a full TfD) David Ruben ^Talk 23:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Been bold (well not really, there has been enough time for people to comment or review coding). Few points as I did this:

1. I followed Fvasconcellos suggestion to leave in the pictures for combination articles, but unlikely to be commonly needed, so parameters not listed in the short version of the "type=combo" example.
2. Whilst I had in my user-subpage proposed a "combo-name" parameter, the template already had an undocumented "imagename" to be shown as an optional alternative to the automatically generated {{Pagename}} of the calling article. "imagename" was fine if one wanted to add a manually specified image caption, but if there was no image then "imagename" was meaningless as a choice of parameter name if one sought to specify the name at the top of this infobox. "combo-name" would have been fine for "type=combo" combination articles, but not for general single drug or MAB articles. Therefore as an alternative to "imagename", I've allowed for a more generically termed "drug-name" parameter to be defined to replace the article's default {{Pagename}}.
3. Tidied up some of the internal documentation as to what is being done.

Please report quickly any major problems - I'm away on holiday in couple days, and if need be we'll just revert the template back until after my return. :-) David Ruben ^Talk 00:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

MAB articles still seem working, here is switch for direct use of Drugbox (vs Drugbox_mab) by Infliximab. I've switched the test examples of ampicillin/sulbactam, perindopril/indapamide and co-codamol to using the real Drugbox and added to Fluticasone/salmeterol. David Ruben ^Talk 01:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Excellent :) Not to be a pain, but is there any way to place articles with no images in Cat:Drug pages needing a structure drawing only if they are not type = mab or type = combo ? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, categorised only on that proviso (works for combo, need check for mab...) David Ruben ^Talk 15:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that was quick! Works for mab as well. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I find these mab names still very confusing and whilst there is a link for [[Monoclonal_antibody#Applications|Therapeutic monoclonal antibody]], would add ing a link at the top of the infobox to Nomenclature of monoclonal antibodies be helpful? Rather than linking the article name itself which would seem strange, better (and easier to code) would be to add a linked superscripted "?", eg Xxxxxmab^? David Ruben ^Talk 15:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Sounds good. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drugbox & Chembox

Hate to be a wet blanket but I'd like to once more suggest that {{drugbox}}, {{explosivebox}} be combined into {{chembox new}} because they all have the same basic identifiers: formula, mw, appearance, density, bp, mp, cas, pubchem, smiles, etc. I think that it is very difficult to arbitrarily draw a line and say that such and such compounds are drugs, such and such are explosives, and such and such are just industrial chemicals. Case in point is nitroglycerine which is both a drug and an explosive; other examples include simple building blocks which are listed as drugs, such as dimercaprol, hydroxyurea, and nitrous oxide.

The fact is that {{chembox new}} already contains drug and explosive parameters. So, why don't we use them and contain all data as a whole? If you wish to incorporate the combo parameter, incorporate it into chembox new instead? --Rifleman 82 03:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't hate to be a wet blanket, especially since you're not being one :) I'm aware that this has been suggested before, and I do believe that eventually these templates probably should be collated into one. My idea was for {{drugbox-combo}} to be a solution for an immediate problem—the generally sorry state of infoboxes in combination drug articles, simply because they're not appropriate for them. As an aside, I honestly prefer the overall look of {{Drugbox}} to that of {{chembox new}}—of course, it wouldn't be fair of me to oppose something in the project's best interest on purely stylistic grounds. Bottom line: I do think that these articles, although not as numerous as those on monoclonal antibodies, would benefit—at least in the short run—from an infobox more suited to them. We should certainly discuss the future of these templates—perhaps somewhere more central?—but I don't really see the harm in a quick fix. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:25, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Tend agree with Fvasconcellos, Chembox really is not appropriate in majority of drug articles, as most of its parameters fail to meet notability threshold for this a general encyclopaedia (who but an industrial pharmacist cares about most of Chembox's parameters if say applied to Ibuprofen or Trimethoprim). Whereas, most non-medicinal chemical articles are about the physical properties of the chemical and so such parameters are of course notable.

So compare how Ibuprofen's infobox and indeed that whole article is really mostly about clinical usage (rather than the manufacturing and biochemistry of its pharmacology - I assure you no doctors nor patients are ever interested in Ibuprofen's Acidity, Basicity, Dipole moment, Spectral data etc etc), against say Hydrochloric acid article which is very much about describing the chemical itself, its most important manufacture, associated industry activity and chemistry. Sure I agree there are some chemicals which have both medical and more widespread uses (eg Potassium permanganate or Glyceryl trinitrate), but these are generally rare exceptions (virtually all analgesics, opiates, antibiotics, drugs for hypertension etc etc have no industrial chemical uses).

So either, for those very few articles where clinical infobox details need to be added to a more generalised chembox, have a bloated Chembox including very rarely used drug parameters, or I would suggest preferably remove these parameters entirely from Chembox and accept that a few articles will use both Chembox and Drugbox infoboxes. David Ruben ^Talk 00:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. In Chembox new and Drugbox, all parameters are optional. What should remain constant (and probably universal) is formula, mw, smiles, inchi, cas #, pubchem #. All drugs should have this data.

I think you misunderstand that the acidity, basicity, dipole moment, etc. are routinely filled in in chemboxes. Even when I fill in chemboxes of some chemical compounds, I use the "simple" option because such detailed information is not (easily) available from MSDS etc. What I do fill in is the parameters above, b.p., m.p. Everything you can find from an MSDS. --Rifleman 82 02:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, fair point :-) I think though that if Chembox used, then temptation would be for all the chemical data to be entered when used on pharmaceutical topics, and as stated, for most drugs such information is not notable for the wider readership. Image what arguments would ensue if parameter information were to be deleted once entered - WP is not a textbook ([[WP:NOT#TEXT) or indiscriminate collection of information (WP:NOT#INFO), and "merely being true or informative does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia" (WP:NOT). In contrast any unfilled parameters for industrial/commercially important substances such as sulphuric acid, iron oxide etc does seem to be of importance and notable as those articles are about the chemicals themselves, rather than drug articles which tend be more about how the chemical is used. Would be good to have additional editors views :-) David Ruben ^Talk 22:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Well if there were too much info it'd be moved to a (data page) so as to reduce table creep. This mechanism already exists in {{chembox new}}. In any case, I can safely say that you won't be able to find the dipole moments, etc. for most drugs, or even most chemicals. --Rifleman 82 02:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm opposed to a merger for now, but I could support one in the future. The ChemboxNew template has only been usable for a few months, and some of the functionality is still stabilizing. And we're still figuring out what to do with Drugbox -- in many cases a "drug" is a molecule, but it can also be an antibody, a mixture, a polymer, or an unrefined plant product. It's going to take some creativity and time to figure out the best ways to handle all the possibilities (and I commend those who are working on that issue as we speak). Once the boxes have stabilized, we would be able to make a more informed decision on how they could coexist. --Arcadian 18:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I clearly vote for a merge. This is required for avoiding a lot of work in the future by editing hundreds of articles. Furthermore is it easier to maintain one centralized solution then having several drug, chem, explosive, and whatever boxes. If people can not agree, I vote for a general chembox intersecting all boxes out there. If there is then still a need for additional information I would prefer an add-on or a plug-in schema for the boxes. JKW 22:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drugbox, Chembox and handling of SMILES, InChI, and CID (PubMed ID)

Beside the merging aspect I want to stress that the handling of InChI, SMILES, and CID is different in the Drugbox and the Chembox. So is also the complexity of the parser functions. In both cases I would prefer to have the same solutions. Although structural link-outs have been already discussed earlier, there was never really a consens for this kind of services, which should be used. I am still in favor of a Special:Search (feature request) page like proposed by User:Beetstra. The feature request seems to be stalled, but please note that the Cheminformatics community has still an eye on it and we had behind the scenes several eMail discussions about it.

The three key databases are at the moment PubChem, eMolecules, and ChemSpider. Since the later two cover even PubChem I would rather prefer to link only to them, if we can have only a limited number of link-outs? Anyway, since the actual template is protected I would like to get access or some comments of people having access. I personally do not see a problem with the parser functions, but I might get into troubles if I would like to introduce them to the Chembox as well? Can anyone forward me to special page to find all articles, which use the boxes? I would like to know what the usage ratio is and about how many pages we are talking? And how serious is the parser function problem?

Furthermore got I informed by others that some sites are using the Template:InChI link, which links directly to ChemSpider, but those boxes look rather deprecated, e.g. like in the article Anthrone. Would it not be a good idea to unify such things? Since InChI and SMILES can make all boxes unreadable, many contain <br/> statements for reducing the width. I understand the formatting issue, but this has three consequences. First, Google is not indexing such things, if at all. Second, we need parser functions replacing the breaks, otherwise the created URI for searches are invalid. Third, the recently announced InChIKey might solve some of those problems, but it is still not clear if this key is really providing unique identifiers (see comment section of the linked blog article).

We are looking forward for some pro-active and pragmatic comments, which will allow us to make a step forward. JKW 22:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I just updated the InChI article for the InChIKey information, and noticed this discussion popping up in my search. I really think the InChIKey should solve many of our problems nicely. Our introduction of InChI on Wikipedia has stalled because of the length problem (see this older discussion). The worry about uniqueness for InChIKey looks unfounded - it is predicted that the probability is vanishingly small even among all the compounds known. At the blog you mentioned, the updated comments say, We have now checked for clashes. We do not see ANY clashes at all so that would seem to confirm it for the 17 million compounds at ChemSpider. It also looks feasible that ACD will allow PNGs to be produced in ChemSketch with an embedded InChIKey. I'll propose soon at WP:CHEM that we support InChIKey. BTW, I got a rough count of articles using the Chembox and Drugbox by using the Whatlinkshere feature, 500 at a time. Walkerma 04:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we should implement this at this time. InChIKey is brand new, it's still in beta, and its use creates a new dependency upon an untested external server. --Arcadian 04:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, InChIKey is in beta for sure. There are requests for a couple of tweaks already. Just fyi the ChemSpider Images are now accessible via a web service and available as PNG with both InChI Strings and InChI Keys. See the blog posting tonight at Structure Images on ChemSpider Tagged for InChI Searching. Web Service Enabled. --24.162.249.146 03:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Molecular mass, molecular weight and molar mass

All of these templates need to be changed to consistently using these terminologies. In every case I have looked at molar mass should replace all of them, except regarding elements where standard atomic weight is correct. --Nick Y. 21:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Also the inclusion of units would be a step in quality improvement.--Nick Y. 21:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Issues handling non-organic compounds

I notice an issue when trying to correct the formula for Cisplatin. As you can see in the image, It is a "Pt" w/ 2 "Cl" & 2 "NH₃. According to the Hill system since there is no Carbon, the elements should all be listed in alphabetical order, as "| Cl=2 | H=6 | N=2 | Pt=1" yielding Cl₂H₆N₂Pt. This simply shows "?" for the formula. I thought maybe the order needed to be different, since traditionally non-organic componds with noble metals list the metal first, such as Pt2Cl₂H₆N₂. However, this didn't work either & I proceeded to try all combinations of it to realize that whenever Carbon is removed, the formula shows "?". Is drugbox not capable of handling the absence of a Carbon, or is something else going on here? --Moschi 10:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Well spotted. Currently a series of nested tests are undertaken for this formula cell:

1. chemical_formula (the original single parameter) is shown if defined
2. Else if "C" is defined then there is a formula composed of individual element values.
3. If "C" is not defined then there is assumed to be no formula at all defined and so the showing of a "?"

To sort this out, either we could:

1. required "C" to be defined in elemental Hill formulas but set to zero if no carbon atoms are to be shown, eg |C=0 |H=2 |O=1 for H₂O - very non-intuative and ugly !
2. Alter the test for a formula to consider several elements, not just carbon. Not sure would need to expand to include all elements, just +hydrogen + nitrogen + oxygen should cover drugs. Clearly the "neat" approach.

 Code  {{#if:{{{C|}}} |
 To    {{#if:{{{C|}}}{{{H|}}}{{{O|}}}{{{N|}}} |

Can anyone foresee any problems with this ? :-)

As for notable metals first... would need a little time to think/work on that. Whilst easy enough to do (a separate conditional test for "C" at the start of the list of elements before a duplicated block of coding for the noble metals, and then where the noble metals currently are each defined add a test to exclude from showing), but template coding will look even more convoluted and I need to think if there might not be a neater way for this already complex infobox (eg create a template just to show formulas and shunt the coding there). David Ruben ^Talk 00:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The complex use of dynamically called OrganicBox_atom vs OrganicBox depending if an element is defined and the conditional parameter values makes setting up conditionals on blocks of elements unweildy. I'll have a rethink on this over the next couple days... my current preference is that it might be better to have a new Hill_Atom template, that itself decides whether to show anything or not (vs use of alternative calling of OrganicBox vs OrganicBox_atom), and takes values not just of the element in question, but also of carbon and a place holder tag.

Hence {{Hill_atom | element | abbreviation | number | colour | carbon_number | place tag }}
e.g. {{Hill_atom | Hydrogen | H | {{{H|}}} | rgb(12,34,56) | {{{C|}}} | on }}

So decision to show is if number defined, and then if happens to be either noble metal or hydrogen and (carbon defined vs place tag) says to show or not. Hence noble metals can be shown at start if no carbon, else in alphabetical order, and likewise hydrogen can shift in its positioning David Ruben ^Talk 21:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add EINECS number parameter

Some drugs, like Natamycin are in the EINECS database. It would be neat if you could look at how {{chembox new}} handles that and add it as a parameter. See for example Sodium formate to see an example of chembox new with an EINECS number. Thank you . — Ksero (leave me a message, things I've done) 00:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. That could be useful, although a step towards making the Drugbox more redundant to {{chembox new}}? :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:45, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Definitely not, as EINECS indicates this was only used 1 January 1971 to 18 September 1981, superceeded by ELINCS and then EC-Number, so at very least, link should be to EC-No. David Ruben ^Talk 02:47, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Topics from 2008

[edit] Pregnancy category in drugbox template

Links to pregnancy category are enabled in Template:drugbox, but relevant wikipedia cataloging has not been implemented. This makes it difficult for readers to search here for drugs by pregnancy category. Could someone here lend a hand in implementing some sort of category scheme? --Una Smith (talk) 00:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a very good idea. I'd be happy to whip up a scheme, as long as David (or someone who speaks template :) agrees to modify the code so cats will be automatically added (i.e. as Cat:Drug pages needing a structure drawing). Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, how's the following scheme? I've contacted David about implementing automatic categorization.

• Cat:Drugs in FDA pregnancy category A
• Cat:Drugs in FDA pregnancy category B
• Cat:Drugs in FDA pregnancy category C
• Cat:Drugs in FDA pregnancy category D
• Cat:Drugs in FDA pregnancy category X

• Cat:Drugs in TGA pregnancy category A
• Cat:Drugs in TGA pregnancy category B1
• Cat:Drugs in TGA pregnancy category B2
• Cat:Drugs in TGA pregnancy category B3
• Cat:Drugs in TGA pregnancy category C
• Cat:Drugs in TGA pregnancy category D
• Cat:Drugs in TGA pregnancy category X

—Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Easy enough to do, however what if there is no category specified - should there also be Cat:Drugs in FDA pregnancy category unspecified and Cat:Drugs in TGA pregnancy category unspecified. Begs questions though:

1. Are all drugs available in US/Australia always given a category by that country ?
2. What then do to with a drug not available in say US, when clearly "pregnancy_US = " will be left blank not though oversight but because not relevant to the US.

Finally why "Drugs in TGA...", what does TGA mean ? I do not see that mentioned in Pregnancy category article ? Might better naming be Cat:Drugs in Australian pregnancy category A, except this is a very long category name ?

Let me know what you think over these points and I'll happily code up (will need similar code as current display switching to force capitalisation). As would be autogenerated categories, easy enough to later alter if we so wish :-) David Ruben ^Talk 18:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

My first thought is that there shouldn't be a category for articles lacking data in the "pregnancy_XX = " fields, only a scheme for those that already do, which could be extended to articles without the data as it becomes available (i.e., as we go over the FDA website and these documents and add the info to the articles :) Am I making any sense here? As for your second and third points, TGA is the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australia's FDA/MHRA counterpart. Over there, some products don't have to have a category assigned to them; I'm not sure about the U.S. I do think "Drugs in Australian..." is better, and not that long a name. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

There should also, I presume, be a supercategory Cat:Drugs by pregnancy category, with daughter cats Cat:Drugs by FDA pregnancy category and Cat:Drugs by Australian pregnancy category, to which the above specific categories would be added. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, all sensible points, and thanks for locating the links. I guess therefore more obvious to have "Drugs in American..." (rather than "Drugs in FDA..." ). Agree all 12 categories need be under one main category Cat:Drugs by pregnancy category, whilst initially unsure re need country specific sub-cats, on reflection (a) might as well structure neatly 1st time around (b) allows more transparent intention for when/if we get any European classification etc etc and (c) allows more direct country specific reference from country-specific articles on drug regulation.

Unless anyone has further thoughts on this, I'll try and code up later tonight or tomorrow; before I have to pack for a 1 week holiday :-) David Ruben ^Talk 21:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Ooops two "obvious" coding approaches (#switch tag within category square brackets[3] or #Ifeq: to set each category call separately[4]) both seemed to fail to add an article to a category. I'm clearly doing something fundamentally silly here (?wrong use of includeonly tags ?). Brain fogg coming on, so may have to wait a week until after my holiday :-) David Ruben ^Talk 01:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help with Alternative Names

The template {{drugbox}} is used on the quinine page, and the IUPAC name was entered as: (R)-(5-ethenyl-1-azabicyclo[2.2.2]oct-2-yl)- (6-methoxyquinolin-4-yl)-methanol. Unfortunately, this is not quite correct as it doesn't define the steroechemistries at the other three chiral carbons, and also the bicycle is often named based on quinuclidine, as: (R)-(6-methoxyquinolin-4-yl)((2S,4S,8R)-8-vinylquinuclidin-2-yl)methanol. I would suggest that the second name be listed as the IUPAC name, and the first as an 'Other Name'. Being bold, I tried to do this, but the drugbox does not seem to allow semi-systematic names in the same way as do chembox templates. Since semi-systematic names are common in both chemicals and drugs (like cholic acid which is often given as 3α,7α,12α-trihydroxy-5β-cholanic acid but for which the IUPAC name is actually (R)-4-((3R,5S,7R,8R,9S,10S,12S,13R,14S,17R)-3,7,12-trihydroxy-10,13-dimethylhexadecahydro-1H-cyclopenta[a]phenanthren-17-yl)pentanoic acid), perhaps an 'OtherName' could be added. I have left both names in the quinine drugbox. EdChem (talk) 05:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] class of drug or mechanism

I was just glancing at Ritodrine and noticed there should be something added to this template.

In the article it says it a beta2 agonist... why not put that somewhere in the template. It would help me to look up a drug and know what class it fits in and I can deduce the mechanism usually from that.

The mechanism should be added to more articles however, but probably isn't enough room in the drug box.

Thanks for all your hard work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.125.28.36 (talk) 03:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

We have that functionality in the combo drugbox (see thread above). Generally, proposals for additional fields haven't really gone through; as you mentioned, clutter is a concern. There certainly isn't room to add mechanism of action (at least not in a way it can be explained properly). That's really best added to the article :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Patent status or generic availability

In an earlier section, Remember (talk · contribs) and Fvasconcellos (talk · contribs) discussed the merits of adding a link to the FDA's Electronic Orange Book. As the latter pointed out, the Orange Book is an "excellent source for checking generic availability and patent stuff." I'd like to ask that a field be added to this template so that a drug's patent status is readily available. In lieu of that, a field that notes the availability of a generic version of the drug is an alternative. 68.167.248.158 (contribs) 11:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Can't use ref with pregnancy_US

I attempted to cite a reference for the pregnancy_US field, and it displayed '?' instead of the appropriate reference. Please fix the template to allow a reference to be included. 68.167.255.125 (talk) 08:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC).

You can add the reference to the | pregnancy_category = field, e.g.

Pregnancy cat.

B(US) [1]

| pregnancy_US = B

| pregnancy_category = <ref>PMID 12345</ref>

It will display like this (to the right):

The field isn't exactly meant for that purpose, but it works. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Retrofit topic-year headers

31-March-2008: I have grouped older topics above using headers "Topics from 2007" (etc.) to emphasize age of topics. Older topics might still apply, but using the tactic of yearly headers to note the age helps avoid rehashing old news, without archiving any ongoing issues. Also, new topics are more likely to be added to the bottom, not top. For clarity, I narrowed the Archive box 50% to allow a wider Table-of-Contents. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Patent information in the drug info-boxes?

I wonder if some patent information could be included in the drug-boxes?

for example:

• the "basic patent" (that is, the first patent to be obtained on the active agent)
• the expiry date of "basic patent"
• the originator of the "basic patent".

e.g.:

• the basic patent for Plavix is EP0099802, the originator is Sanofi-Synthélabo.
• the basic patent for Ciprofloxacin is EP0049355, the originator is Bayer

After all, billions of dollars a year often depend on such patents. Indeed the big-pharmaceutical companies (in fact any pharmaceutical company) would not do any R&D at all if there were not a patent and the end of it, and so there would be no new drugs without patents! Also, the day these patents expire is often of great interest, as these dates often open the floodgates for generic companies to make cheaper versions, and thus cheaper healthcare for patients becomes available. Admittedly this information is not always easy to find, but what better place for this information to be pooled (over time) than in a quality encyclopaedia such as this! -- Quantockgoblin (talk) 00:06, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No drug identifier vs missing value

CAS, ATC, PubChem and Drugbank don't apply for many proprietary & combination products in the UK, eg Paramax (paracetamol & metoclopramide). Currently the infobox shows a "?" if these parameters are missing, to highlight that the parameters need asigning values. However where the relevant US-based database have no entry on the product, then these fields should be blank. Any thoughts whether the parameters should be hidden or perhaps display "No entry" ? David Ruben ^Talk 00:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps blank for the combo drugbox, where there is less chance of the product being in a database, and "?" for the single-drug template, where the parameter if far more likely to be empty because no one's filled it in yet? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:04, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Range of temperatures

On Testosterone someone has put

| melting_point=155-156

which causes a negative temperature. Please fix whatever template or pages are involved one way or the other. Bye. Jidanni (talk) 01:35, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Thanks, the fix is to use the melting_high parameter, as here David Ruben ^Talk 11:23, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Needs drug class added to drug box

Needs class of drug added to drug box. Just open lippincott's pharmacology and use that system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.212.236 (talk) 00:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.151.232.3 (talk) 18:16, 8 June 2008 (UTC)