The WHO Drug Dictionary is an international classification of medicines created by the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring and managed by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre.
It is used by pharmaceutical companies, clinical trial organizations and drug regulatory authorities for identifying drug names in spontaneous ADR reporting (and pharmacovigilance) and in clinical trials. Created in 1968 and regularly updated, since 2005 there have been major developments in the form of a WHO Drug Dictionary Enhanced (with considerably more fields and data entries) and a WHO Herbal Dictionary, which covers traditional and herbal medicines. Since 2016 all of the WHODrug products have been available in a single subscription service called WHODrug Global.
Dictionary Versions
The WHO Drug Dictionary has previously been abbreviated as "WHODRL" and may still be referenced as such.