Search tips

Searching by keyword

The search box located on the top of the website works by searching the website's content that contain the words you type in. It looks for these keywords in all of the website's content.

The search box accessible via 'Medicines' in the main menu and the simple medicine search on the homepage work differently. They look for authorised medicines only, based on the active substance or medicine name you type in. They bring up suggestions as you start typing your search word.

You can also initiate a search without typing in a search word, with the help of the search filters available on the main search interface. If you are initiating a search via the sitewide search or the 'Find medicine' page and do not want to use a search word, just click on the search button next to the search box without typing anything in the box. This will take you to the main search interface where you can start using the filters.

Searching for documents

The search interface looks for webpage content by default, excluding documents.

To find documents, you need to select 'Include documents' at the top of the left sidebar.

You can further filter the search results by selecting specific document types to find the exact document you are looking for.

Using the search filters is a good way to make your search more precise. When you view the website on a desktop computer, these are on the left of the main Tearch interface. On a smaller screen, such as a mobile device, they are at the top in a collapsible section called 'Refine'.

Three types of filters

The search functionality has three different types of filters:

checkbox filters, allowing you to narrow down your results, e.g. to a specific category of medicine, authorisation status or content type;

controlled vocabulary filters, allowing you to conduct more precise searches of EMA's medicine records and website content. These filters bring up suggestions as you start typing your search word. If you select one of the suggestions, the results will be limited to content where the search word matches the filter subject.

date range filters, allowing you to narrow down your results to, e.g.:
- medicines that have been approved, authorised, published or revised within a specific timeframe;
- events taking place within a specific timeframe;
- news published within a specific timeframe.

Combine filters to narrow down your search

You can apply several different filters together to narrow down your results. For example, you can simultaneously select Human under categories, Medicines under medicine type, Authorised under authorisation status and use the controlled vocabulary from the drop-down list to search for a specific therapeutic area such as Epilepsy. Your results will display all of the filters you have used under the search box on the results page.

You can remove filters by clicking the X next to the filter you want to remove or remove all filters by clicking the X next to 'Remove all filters' (see above). Make sure you remove all filters before starting a new search.

Choose how to sort your results

EMA's search sorts results by recency, i.e. how new the content is. You can also reverse the order, and show the oldest content first.

If this does not suit your needs, you can also sort alphabetically (A-Z or Z-A).

If you have too many results to be able to sort them, use the filtering options on the left of the results page or add additional search words to reduce their number.

Why you may not be able find certain medicines

The medicine you are looking for may be authorised in individual Member States via national procedures, rather than centrally via EMA. Only medicines evaluated by EMA are available on this website.

You may not be able to obtain a complete list of available treatment options for a specific condition by searching on EMA's website.

Check the national registers of authorised medicines for finding medicines authorised via national procedures.

Topics

Medicines