IDMP-O gives regulators, manufacturers and healthcare providers a shared digital language for cross-border prescriptions, pharmacovigilance and medicine shortage monitoring
London, UK, 10 June 2026 – The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance that advocates for greater collaboration in life sciences R&D, has announced the next phase of its Identification of Medicinal Products Ontology. The data resource enables organizations to keep pace with tightening medicines data regulation, including the impending June 2026 deadline for manufacturers to submit standardized medicinal product data to the EMA’s Product Management System (PMS), whether via the PMS user interface or API integration. The new phase formalizes long-term stewardship of the IDMP Ontology (IDMP-O) to support consistent implementation of ISO IDMP standards that govern how medicinal product data is recorded and exchanged globally. Accurids will provide expert maintenance and governance will be overseen by Pistoia Alliance members including Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck & Co., Amgen, and Global Value Web.
“IDMP is the silent backbone of global drug data. It underpins how medicines are described and understood between organizations. Previously, there was too much room for interpretation, increasing the risk of inconsistencies across companies and markets. Through the Pistoia Alliance, members have created a shared ontology once, collaboratively, rather than repeatedly in isolation,” comments Dr Becky Upton, President of The Pistoia Alliance. “More than 10 major pharmaceutical enterprises have adopted IDMP-O – a signal of how important shared semantic layers are in an era of tightening regulatory and accelerating AI adoption. We’re actively looking for more organizations to get involved as we ensure IDMP-O remains a stable, reliable and reference industry resource for years to come.”
The regulatory shift from document-based medicine information towards structured digital data demands a new level of consistency in how medicines are described. IDMP-O provides that foundation, supporting cross-border prescriptions, pharmacovigilance and medicine shortage monitoring across systems and organizations.
“Seeing our consortium’s work translated into action has been very rewarding. Working with Accurids to build an IDMP-O-based product master for our Innovation Medicine sector showed how a shared industry resource can move beyond theory and become practical enterprise data infrastructure,” comments Gang Xue, Sr. Director, Global Head of TDS Digital at Johnson & Johnson.
IDMP-O covers all five standards set by The ISO, providing a common structure for describing medicinal products, pharmaceutical products, substances, dose forms, routes, packaging and units of measurement.
“Over the past 5 years, ACCURIDS has partnered with the Pistoia Alliance to create the IDMP Ontology and establish it in pharma. This 3-year commitment provides the maintenance required to move IDMP-O into broader adoption across the industry while ensuring seamless alignment with evolving ISO IDMP standards,” comments Heiner Oberkampf, CEO and Co-Founder of Accurids.
In the project’s next phase, the project’s steering committee plans to further lower technical barriers for organizations at any stage of their IDMP journey with simplified vocabularies, knowledge graphs and implementation guides. Following phased development by industry members, a version of IDMP-O is publicly available. For more information, visit https://pistoiaalliance.org/project/idmp-o/