Finding Drug Information
Use CPS, UpToDate to search for reliable drug details including clinical pharmacology details. CPS provides Canadian details, UpToDate is more US-based, but does have some Canadian content.
The rest of the listed resources can be useful for finding peer-reviewed articles as needed. Try searching on your drug name (chemical, generic, or brand name) plus terms like pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, synthesis, mechanisms, structure, etc.
Key Resources
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CPS Full Access
CPS Full Access is an easily searchable tool that includes the electronic versions of the Canadian Pharmaceutical Association’s annual Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties and the content from their Therapeutic Choices. These resources provide a thorough and centralized overview of many drugs, drug therapy and clinical tools.
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UpToDate
UpToDate is a website and app-based tool that provides quick access to information about diagnosis, clinical practice, and point of care information. UpToDate draws reliable information from many clinical sources and presents it in an easy to read format that supports learning and practice in medical fields.
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SciFinder-n (Chemical Abstracts (CAplus), CAS Registry, CASREACT, CHEMCATS, CHEMLIST, MARPAT)
SciFinder-n is the world's premier chemical information database produced by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society. SciFinder-n indexes over 50,000 journal titles (historical and current) and patent records from 63 patent authorities. You can search documents by topic, author, company name, or document identifier such as DOI; substances by name or CAS Registry Number, OR use the editor to draw chemical structures, substructures, or reactions. SciFinder-n is a core research tool for chemistry, biochemistry, chemical engineering, materials science, nanotechnology, physics, environmental science. SciFinder-n is a collection of 6 CAS databases plus Medline: Chemical Abstracts (CAplus), CAS Registry, CASREACT, CHEMCATS, CHEMLIST, MARPAT.Depending on your research, SciFinder-n is complementary to other databases like Scopus, PubMed, INSPEC, IEEE. Content includes: journal articles, patents, conference proceedings, technical reports, books, dissertations, and meeting abstracts, organic and inorganic substances, DNA and protein sequences, single and multi-step reactions, synthetic preparations, catalog database of commercially available products from chemical suppliers, Markush structures, etc.
Subscribed multi-user unlimited access -
PubMed
PubMed is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's (NLM®) database of biomedical citations and abstracts. It includes MEDLINE, which covers over 4,800 journals published in the United States and more than 70 other countries primarily from 1966 to the present.
Open Access -
American Chemical Society (ACS)
The American Chemical Society promotes research and the advancement of knowledge in Chemistry and Chemistry-related fields. This resource provides us with access to approximately 46 journals.
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EMBASE
EMBASE is a major biomedical and pharmaceutical database indexing international journals in the following fields: drug research, pharmacology, pharmaceutics, toxicology, clinical and experimental human medicine, health policy and management, public health, occupational health, environmental health, drug dependence and abuse, psychiatry, forensic medicine, and biomedical engineering/instrumentation.
Subscribed multi-user unlimited access | 1947-Current -
Google scholar
Google Scholar searches a subset of the Web that Google has classified as "scholarly literature". They do not publish a list of chosen sites, and they do not state how often sites are checked. Some important sources are not covered at all. Thus, Google Scholar alone should not be relied on for comprehensive research.
How to register for a SciFinder account:
Access SciFinder through UNB Libraries to register for a free account - you need to create an account to use the database.
- Instructions on how to create an account (they're very particular on how to create a user name and password)
- Once you've registered for an account you can access the database through the SciFinder-n registered user login button:
