Openfda MCP Server

@cyanheads/openfda-mcp-server Query FDA data on drugs, food, devices, and recalls via openFDA. STDIO or Streamable HTTP. 15 Tools

Public Hosted Server: https://openfda.caseyjhand.com/mcp

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Overview

FDA data on drugs, food, devices, and recalls from the openFDA public API. Search adverse events, recalls, drug approvals, and device clearances; look up NDC codes and drug labels; aggregate field counts across any endpoint.

Tools

Capability reference

openfda_drug_profile tool

• One drug name, brand or generic, resolved once to an identity (generic name, NDC, RxCUI, SPL set ID); recalls, approval, and shortage key on meta.fanOutKey — the typed name when it is an ingredient of the resolved generic, else that generic; meta.resolvedVia (label, ndc, none) names the source, and a single-ingredient product is preferred over combinations
• Recalls and approval also search records openFDA never harmonized (product_description, products.active_ingredients.name); recalls_total gives the match count beside the newest 5 recalls
• Sections label, adverse_events, recalls, approval, and shortage are best-effort and come back null (or an empty recalls) on a miss; degraded[] names each section whose sub-query failed upstream, so a listed section is unknown rather than absent
• Auth, configuration, and cancellation failures fail the whole call instead of degrading a section

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openfda_search_adverse_events tool

• category (drug, food, device) selects the endpoint and its record schema; up to 1000 records per page
• Sortable date fields differ by category: receivedate (drug), date_created (food), date_received (device); another category's field fails as query_error
• Text output decodes drug administration route, reaction outcome, and patient age group codes beside the raw value (via oral (048), fatal (5), elderly (6)); structured output keeps the codes

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openfda_search_animal_events tool

• Optional search over veterinary reports, e.g. animal.species, drug.active_ingredients.name, reaction.veddra_term_name, serious_ae; up to 1000 records per page
• Brand and manufacturer names are masked as MSK on every record, so search by active ingredient; drug.manufacturer.registration_number narrows to one approval
• Records carry animal species, breed, age, and weight, the drug and route, VeDDRA reaction terms, and outcome

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openfda_search_drug_shortages tool

• Optional search over status (Current / To Be Discontinued / Resolved), therapeutic_category, generic_name, or company_name; up to 1000 records per page
• Each record's openfda block carries brand_name, product_ndc, and rxcui for chaining into openfda_get_drug_label or openfda_lookup_ndc

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openfda_search_tobacco_reports tool

• Optional search over tobacco_products, reported_health_problems, reported_product_problems, or nonuser_affected; up to 1000 records per page
• Reports carry the problem arrays plus number_tobacco_products, number_health_problems, and number_product_problems counts

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openfda_search_recalls tool

• category (drug, food, device) plus endpoint: enforcement (default, every category) or recall (devices only; other categories fail as recall_endpoint_non_device); up to 1000 records per page
• Enforcement records carry recall_number, classification (Class I/II/III), and status; device recall records carry product_res_number and recall_status instead, with no hazard classification

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openfda_count_values tool

• endpoint (any of the 20 openFDA endpoints), a count field expression, and an optional search; returns up to 1000 top terms (default 100), ranked by count; a date field returns one term per distinct YYYYMMDD date, ranked the same way
• truncated flags more distinct terms past limit, except at the 1000-term maximum, where a notice says completeness can't be known (a date count is exact at any limit, since openFDA sends every date); an expression openFDA can't aggregate fails as not_aggregatable (take the countAs form from openfda_describe_fields)
• Always runs against the live API, even with the bulk mirror enabled

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openfda_describe_fields tool

• endpoint: the same 20 endpoints openfda_count_values accepts
• Field paths grouped by category, each with type, a description, and countAs (the verified count expression, or null when the field can't be aggregated), plus queryTips on quoting, AND/OR, .exact, and date ranges

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openfda_get_drug_label tool

• Required search on label fields (openfda.brand_name, openfda.generic_name, openfda.manufacturer_name, set_id); limit defaults to 5, max 1000
• A page over the 24,000-byte inline budget returns kind: "outline" (section names and sizes, largest first) instead of label text; re-call with sections: [...] to get those sections plus identity metadata (openfda, set_id, id, effective_time, version), returned whole even when over budget
• *_table sections render as Markdown tables in the text output; structured results keep the raw SPL markup

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openfda_search_drug_approvals tool

• Optional search over openfda.brand_name, sponsor_name (stored uppercase, so a lowercase quoted value matches nothing), submissions.submission_type, or submissions.review_priority; up to 1000 records per page
• Records carry application_number, sponsor_name, products[], and the application's full submissions[] history

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openfda_search_device_clearances tool

• pathway (510k or pma, one per call) plus an optional search over applicant, product_code, advisory_committee_description, or openfda.device_name; up to 1000 records per page
• 510(k) records carry k_number, device_name, and decision_date; PMA records carry pma_number, trade_name, and supplement_number

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openfda_lookup_ndc tool

• Required search over product_ndc, brand_name, generic_name, openfda.manufacturer_name, or active_ingredients.name; up to 1000 records per page
• Records carry product_ndc, labeler_name, dosage_form, route, marketing_category, active_ingredients[], and packaging[]

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openfda_dataframe_describe tool

• canvas_id from a staged search; lists each table's name, kind, full staged row_count, and columns with DuckDB type and nullability
• Fails as canvas_disabled when CANVAS_PROVIDER_TYPE=none, or canvas_not_found when the canvas_id has expired or never existed

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openfda_dataframe_query tool

• canvas_id plus one read-only SELECT; DDL, DML, COPY, and file-reading functions are rejected. Scalars are stored as text (CAST for math) and nested openFDA blocks as JSON columns
• Rows are capped at the canvas row limit, and truncated: true means page on with ORDER BY plus LIMIT/OFFSET; failures are canvas_disabled, canvas_not_found, missing_table, or invalid_query

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openfda_dataframe_drop tool

• Off by default: set OPENFDA_DATAFRAME_DROP_ENABLED=true to make it callable; otherwise it is listed as disabled on the landing page and absent from tools/list
• canvas_id plus the table name from openfda_dataframe_describe; deletes that one table or view and returns remaining_tables, leaving the canvas and its other tables in place
• Failures are canvas_disabled, canvas_not_found, or missing_table (already dropped, expired, or mistyped)

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core: stdio and Streamable HTTP transports, pluggable auth (none / jwt / oauth), swappable storage (in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1), structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing.

openFDA-specific:

• One client for all 20 openFDA endpoints, with retry on 429 and 5xx. No API key is needed (1K requests/day); a