How to find who made your medicine

About nine in ten U.S. prescriptions are filled with generics, and the company named on your bottle often didn't make the pills. Here's how to trace yours.

1. Find the NDC number

The National Drug Code is printed on the pharmacy label of most prescriptions, and always on the stock bottle or box the pharmacy dispensed from. It's 10 digits in three groups, such as 43598-098-05. Pharmacy labels and receipts sometimes show it as 11 digits with no dashes (43598009805); that works too.

• The first group is the company that put its name on the product (the "labeler").
• The second group is the specific product: drug, strength and form.
• The last group is the package size.

If you can't find it, ask your pharmacist which manufacturer's product you received. They have to know, and many will write it down.

2. Look it up

Enter the NDC in the search box. You'll see the product, the company on the label and, when the label names them, the plants that make it.

3. If it says "repackaged"

Many prescriptions, especially from mail-order, clinic and hospital pharmacies, come from repackagers that buy pills in bulk and rebottle them. Their labels name the original product, so we follow the chain back and show you the maker's plants.

4. Check the plant

Each plant page shows FDA's inspection history and what inspectors wrote down. Here's how to read the results.

When the label names no plant

Companies don't have to put plant details in every label, and many don't. The manufacturer's name is often printed on the stock bottle ("Manufactured by …"), and the company page here lists the plants it names for its other drugs.

Want to know which pharmacy filled a prescription you got by mail? Try our companion site, Who Filled My Rx?