DrugBank

The DrugBank database is a comprehensive, freely accessible, online database containing information on drugs and drug targets created and maintained by the University of Alberta and The Metabolomics Innovation Centre (TMIC) located in Alberta, Canada. As both a bioinformatics and a cheminformatics resource, DrugBank combines detailed drug (i.e. chemical, pharmacological and pharmaceutical) data with comprehensive drug target (i.e. sequence, structure, and pathway) information. DrugBank has used content from Wikipedia; Wikipedia also often links to Drugbank, posing potential circular reporting issues.

The DrugBank Online website is available to the public as a free-to-access resource. However, use and re-distribution of content from DrugBank Online or the underlying DrugBank Data, in whole or part, and for any purpose requires a license. Academic users can apply for a free license for certain use cases while all other users require a paid license.

The latest release of the database (version 6.0) contains 11,891 drug entries including 4030 FDA-approved small molecule drugs, 1601 FDA-approved biotech (protein/peptide) drugs, 134 nutraceuticals and 6722 experimental drugs. Additionally, 4939 non-redundant protein (i.e. drug target/enzyme/transporter/carrier) sequences are linked to these drug entries. Each DrugCard entry contains more than 200 data fields with half of the information being devoted to drug/chemical data and the other half devoted to drug target or protein data.

Four additional databases, HMDB, T3DB, SMPDB and FooDB are also part of a general suite of metabolomic/cheminformatic databases. HMDB contains equivalent information on more than 40,000 human metabolites, T3DB contains information on 3100 common toxins and environmental pollutants, SMPDB contains pathway diagrams for nearly 700 human metabolic pathways and disease pathways, while FooDB contains equivalent information on ~28,000 food components and food additives.

Version history The first version of DrugBank was released in 2006. This early release contained relatively modest information about 841 FDA-approved small molecule drugs and 113 biotech drugs. It also included information on 2133 drug targets. The second version of DrugBank was released in 2009. This greatly expanded and improved version of the database included 1344 approved small molecule drugs and 123 biotech drugs as well as 3037 unique drug targets. Version 2.0 also included, for the first time, withdrawn drugs and illicit drugs, extensive food-drug and drug-drug interactions as well as ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity) parameters. Version 3.0 was released in 2011. This version contained 1424 approved small molecule drugs and 132 biotech drugs as well as >4000 unique drug targets. Version 3.0 also included drug transporter data, drug pathway data, drug pricing, patent and manufacturing data as well as data on >5000 experimental drugs. Version 4.0 was released in 2014. This version included 1558 FDA-approved small molecule drugs, 155 biotech drugs and 4200 unique drug targets. Version 4.0 also incorporated extensive information on drug metabolites (structures and reactions), drug taxonomy, drug spectra, drug binding constants and drug synthesis information. Version 5.0 was released in 2018. This version included 2100 FDA-approved small molecule drugs, 555 biotech drugs, 4563 unique drug targets. Version 5 also incorporated new data types that captures the influence of drugs on metabolite (pharmaco-metabolomic), protein (pharmaco-proteomic) and gene expression (pharmaco-transcriptomic) levels. Version 5 also added mobile device compatibility, better searching tools, data on clinical trials and drug repurposing efforts and for the first time, images of pills or medication. Version 6.0 was released n 2024. In addition to the number of drug entries reported above, the number of FDA-approved drugs and investigational drugs had grown compared to Version 5. There was a large increase in the number drug-drug and drug-food interactions reported. The number of drug metabolism pathways grew substantially from 64 in Version 5 to 2721 with this last release. Experimental as well as predicted MS/MS, NMR spectra, Collision Cross Section (CCS- for MS), retention indices (RI, for gas chromatography) and retention time (RT, for liquid chromatography) were added for the small molecule drugs. Table 1 provides a more complete statistical summary of the history of DrugBank's development. + Table 1. Comparison between the coverage in DrugBank 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 and DrugBank 6.0. Category 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 No. of data fields per DrugCard No. of search types No. of illustrated drug-action pathways No. of drugs with metabolizing enzyme data No. of drug metabolites with structures No. of drug-metabolism reactions No. of illustrated drug metabolism pathways No. of drugs with drug transporter data No. of drugs with taxonomic classification information No. of SNP-associated drug effects No. of drugs with patent/pricing/manufacturer data No. of food–drug interactions No. of drug–drug interactions No. of ADMET parameters (Caco-2, LogS) No. of QSAR parameters per drug No. of drugs with drug-target binding constant data No. of drugs with NMR spectra No. of drugs with MS spectra No. of drugs with chemical synthesis information No. of FDA-approved small molecule drugs No. of biotech drugs No. of nutraceutical drugs No. of withdrawn drugs No. of illicit drugs No. of experimental drugs Total No. of experimental and FDA small molecule drugs Total No. of experimental and FDA drugs (all types) No. of all drug targets (unique) No. of approved-drug enzymes/carriers (unique) No. of all drug enzymes/carriers (unique) No. of external database links No. of drug product pill images0000 No. of linked drug indicators0000 No. of clinical trials0000

Scope and access All data in DrugBank is derived from public non-proprietary sources. Nearly every data item is fully traceable and explicitly referenced to the original source. DrugBank data is available through a public web interface.

DrugBank

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