Check a drug's labeling, its shortage and recall status, the trials now enrolling and the newest literature, with each answer pointing to the FDA, ClinicalTrials.gov or PubMed record behind it. Connect the Firecrawl connector and Claude reaches these sources in Firecrawl Alexandria, including the public openFDA datasets.
Best for
- Clinical pharmacists and physicians confirming shortage or recall status.
- Teams using Claude for life sciences work, such as tracking competitor pipelines and approvals.
- Medical affairs, writers and students who need citations with PMIDs or NCT numbers.
Connector and data providers
Connector: the Firecrawl connector. With it on, Claude can query federal health records in Firecrawl Alexandria, and each lookup costs 5 Firecrawl credits.
Data providers in Firecrawl Alexandria
| Provider | Tool | Returns |
|---|---|---|
| FDA | Drug labels | Structured product labeling, including warnings and indications where the label has them. |
| FDA | Drug shortages | Shortage listings showing generic name, manufacturer, presentation, status and when the entry was last updated. |
| FDA | Drug recalls | Recall records with class, reason, the recalling company and current status. Separate tools cover devices and food. |
| FDA | Drug applications | Drugs@FDA application records with the history of submissions. |
| ClinicalTrials.gov | Search | Studies filtered by condition, intervention, sponsor, status or site, each with its NCT number, phase, enrollment and key dates. |
| PubMed and PMC | Search | Literature matching a PubMed-style query, each record carrying its PMID, DOI, journal and date. |
| NPI Registry | Search | Clinicians and organizations by name, specialty and location, with NPI and practice details. |
Explore Firecrawl Alexandria data providers across categories
Starter prompt
Swap the drug for the one you're researching:
Use Firecrawl to put together a status brief on tirzepatide from the FDA,
ClinicalTrials.gov and PubMed tools in Firecrawl Alexandria. Tell me each
tool's cost before calling it.
Cover:
- Indications and the boxed warning, quoted from the FDA label.
- Whether it's on the FDA shortage list, and the status and update date.
- Five recruiting trials with NCT number, phase, sponsor and condition.
- Three systematic reviews published since 2025, with PMID and journal.
Quote exactly and flag any record you couldn't find. This is research,
not advice about a patient.Before you start
- Set up the connector. Click Connect at the Firecrawl connector, sign in to Firecrawl (new accounts cost nothing), choose who gets billed and allow access. It takes a minute and no technical setup; Firecrawl in Claude pictures each step.
- Turn it on. From a chat's + menu, go to Connectors and enable Firecrawl.
- Leave patients out of it. Ask about drugs, trials and conditions only. The tools search public records and never need a patient's details.
In Claude, go to Customize → Connectors, pick Firecrawl, and under Tool permissions set the Read-only tools group to Always allow, so Claude can run lookups without asking each time. Some of those lookups use Firecrawl credits, so keep confirmation on if you'd rather approve each paid call yourself.
Limitations of using Claude for healthcare research without Firecrawl
Claude for medical research needs current, sourced facts, and that's where an assistant working from memory is most exposed.
- Errors can sound authoritative. Anthropic advises reviewing the sources behind any Claude answer, because responses are sometimes wrong and a convincing quote may have no factual basis (Anthropic).
- Safety updates after the cutoff. Anything that happened after a model's training date may be missing or wrong, Anthropic says (Anthropic). A shortage declared or a recall issued last month can be missing.
- Drug information is hard for chatbots. A 2025 study comparing chatbot answers with the Lexicomp reference found ChatGPT-3.5 accurate on 30% of real clinician drug questions and ChatGPT-4 on 40% (JACCP). It's a reminder to check any assistant's drug facts against the label.
- References that don't exist. In one analysis of AI-generated medical writing, 47% of 115 references were fabricated (Cureus), which is why a PMID matters.
- General web search has gaps. Anthropic notes that links from Claude's web search occasionally don't work, and that Team and Enterprise owners must enable search first (Anthropic). Search results also aren't structured registry records.
Where Claude gets drug, trial and literature records with Firecrawl
Whether it's Claude for doctors checking a drug or a pharma team tracking trials, each question passes through three layers:
- Firecrawl Alexandria: the health data source. FDA, ClinicalTrials.gov and PubMed all appear among its 100+ providers, next to the Firecrawl Research Index and Firecrawl's other indexes. Firecrawl's blind-judged 845-task test credited agents that queried Firecrawl Alexandria with 21% higher answer quality than default-web agents.
- FDA data that tracks this week: our shortage search listed dopamine, midazolam and amphetamine products as Current, updated from Sep 22 to Oct 5, 2026, and recent drug recalls included September 2026 Class II actions over sterility assurance and CGMP deviations.
- Trials and papers: ClinicalTrials.gov reported 98 recruiting studies involving tirzepatide, each carrying an NCT number, phase, sponsor and estimated dates, and PubMed supplies literature with PMIDs.
- Records you can open: results link back to the government source, and openFDA's own disclaimer says its data shouldn't be relied on for medical care decisions.
Healthcare research in Claude with and without Firecrawl Alexandria
| Claude by itself | Claude with Firecrawl Alexandria | |
|---|---|---|
| Drug information | Recalled from training | Quoted FDA label text |
| Supply and safety | Possibly out of date | FDA shortage and recall entries with status and dates |
| Trials | Landmark studies only | ClinicalTrials.gov results by drug, condition, sponsor or status |
| Citations | May be invented | PubMed records with PMIDs and DOIs |
| Provider lookup | Not possible | NPI Registry entries with specialty and address |
| Source | Difficult to verify | The FDA, ClinicalTrials.gov, PubMed and the NPI Registry within Firecrawl Alexandria, home to 100+ providers. Explore the catalog |
| Regulatory history | Rough timeline | Drugs@FDA applications with submission records |
Build your own healthcare research workflow
Frame the prompt for your work. For hospital pharmacy:
Use Firecrawl to list FDA drug shortages currently marked Current for
injectable products, with company, presentation and update date, and check
the last 30 days of FDA recalls for the same drugs.For life sciences competitive intelligence:
With Firecrawl, search ClinicalTrials.gov for recruiting Phase 3 obesity
trials, grouped by sponsor, with intervention and estimated primary
completion. Point out sponsors running more than three.Naming the source, the filters and the output keeps Claude on official records.
Take it further
Review recent recalls
Use Firecrawl to list FDA drug recalls from September 2026 with class,
recalling firm and reason.Open a protocol
With Firecrawl, open NCT07091734 on ClinicalTrials.gov and summarize the
eligibility rules, primary outcome and trial sites.Look at adverse event reports
Use Firecrawl to search FDA adverse event reports for semaglutide that
mention pancreatitis and summarize seriousness and who reported them.Look up a clinician
With Firecrawl, find cardiovascular disease specialists in Austin, Texas
in the NPI Registry with NPI numbers and practice addresses.See prices before anything runs
Use Firecrawl to list tools for FDA records, clinical trials, PubMed and
the NPI Registry, with prices.What it costs
Every health lookup here is 5 credits, charged when it runs; listing tools and prices beforehand is free. Firecrawl pricing shows what each plan includes.
| Tool | What you learn | Credits per call |
|---|---|---|
| Drug labels (FDA) | Label text | 5 |
| Drug shortages (FDA) | Shortage status | 5 |
| Drug recalls (FDA) | Recall history | 5 |
| Drug applications (FDA) | Approval records | 5 |
| Search (ClinicalTrials.gov) | Matching trials | 5 |
| Search (PubMed and PMC) | Matching papers | 5 |
| Search (NPI Registry) | Provider records | 5 |
After answering, Claude notes the tool it called and the credits spent.
[ Healthcare research in Claude ]
Add Firecrawl to Claude and check drugs, trials and papers against official records. Viewing prices costs nothing.
Related use cases
- How to search arXiv and PubMed in Claude: advanced PubMed queries and conference reviews.
- How to find papers that cite a study in Claude: see what built on a published trial.
- How to use Claude for research: literature and data for any subject.
Coverage limits
- Mostly US data. FDA and NPI records cover the US. For European medicines, Firecrawl Alexandria's EMA provider covers centrally authorized products.
- A record isn't a conclusion. A label doesn't prove a product is on the market, an NPI doesn't confirm a license, and trial openings should be checked with the study team.
- No medical advice. These tools surface public records for research and professional review, not recommendations for any individual.