U.S. flag An official website of the United States government

On Oct. 1, 2024, the FDA began implementing a reorganization impacting many parts of the agency. We are in the process of updating FDA.gov content to reflect these changes.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration
  1. Home
  2. Drugs
  3. Resources | Drugs
  4. Phonetic and Orthographic Computer Analysis (POCA) Program
  1. Resources | Drugs

Phonetic and Orthographic Computer Analysis (POCA) Program

POCA System Overview

The Phonetic and Orthographic Computer Analysis (POCA) program is a software tool that uses an advanced algorithm to determine the orthographic and phonetic similarity between two drug names. The program can compare a drug name against multiple drug names found in several different “data sources” contained in the software. The data sources are:

  • Drugs@FDA (updated monthly)
  • RxNorm (updated monthly)
  • Suffixes in the proper name of approved biological products (updated monthly)
  • United States Adopted Names (updated twice a year)

POCA ONLINE

POCA online access is a fast and direct way of using the POCA search tool without needing to download any software. Public users can click on the link provided below and begin performing searches securely and anonymously.

Launch POCA

Back to Top