Removal of Grouper concepts

The current grouper concepts are:

• 10363701000001104 | Virtual therapeutic moiety (product)|
• 10363801000001108 | Virtual medicinal product (product)|
• 10363901000001102 | Actual medicinal product (product)|
• 8653601000001108 | Virtual medicinal product pack (product)|
• 10364001000001104 | Actual medicinal product pack (product)|

The removal of grouper concepts will result in changes to the hierarchical classification of concepts within the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension. Concepts will be classified using their defining characteristics, resulting in new parent-child relationships in a number of areas of the drug hierarchy. The examples below illustrate some of the classification patterns that will be introduced.

VMPs that have the same ingredients in the same strength but different container sizes, for example:  

• morphine sulfate 120mg/60ml solution for infusion vials
• morphine sulfate 100mg/50ml solution for infusion vials  

Both VMPs have the same modelled strength of:  

• morphine sulfate 2 mg/ml 

Concepts that are ‘parallel import’ will infer as children of an equivalent ‘non-parallel import’ concept if one exists.   

For example:  

• 10502511000001103 |Tizanidine 4mg tablets (Waymade Healthcare Plc) (parallel import) (real clinical drug)|  

Infers as a child of:  

• 21883911000001109 |Tizanidine 4mg tablets (Waymade Healthcare Plc) (real clinical drug)|

Concepts that are ‘sugar free’ will infer as children of an equivalent ‘non-sugar free’ concept if one exists.   

For example:  

• 10307511000001103 |Erythromycin ethyl succinate 125mg/5ml oral suspension sugar free (Focus Pharmaceuticals Ltd) (real clinical drug)|  

Infers as a child of:  

• 10307311000001109 |Erythromycin ethyl succinate 125mg/5ml oral suspension (Focus Pharmaceuticals Ltd) (real clinical drug)| 

Where a branded and generic version of the same product exists from the same supplier, the branded product will classify as a child of the generic (non-branded) version. For example:  

• 10198711000001102 |Zanidip 20mg tablets (Recordati Pharmaceuticals Ltd) (real clinical drug)|  

Infers as a child of:  

• 21857911000001106 |Lercanidipine 20mg tablets (Recordati Pharmaceuticals Ltd) (real clinical drug)|

The published test files contain concepts that will classify beneath other concepts within the same hierarchy once grouper concepts are removed. The table below shows the number of affected concepts in the published test files.