FDA

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Power end-to-end data operations for your FDA API with Nexla. Our bi-directional FDA connector is purpose-built for FDA, making it simple to ingest data, sync it across systems, and deliver it anywhere — all with no coding required. Nexla turns API-sourced data into ready-to-use, reusable data products and makes it easy to send data to FDA or any other destination. With comprehensive monitoring, lineage tracking, and access controls, Nexla keeps your FDA workflows fast, secure, and fully governed.

Features

Type: API

SourceDestination

• Seamless API Integration: Connect to any endpoint as source or destination without coding, with automatic data product creation
• Visual Composition & Chaining: Build complex integrations using visual templates, chain API calls, and compose workflows with data validation and filtering
• API Proxy: Expose curated slices of your data securely with a secure and customizable API proxy that validates and transforms data on the fly
• Request optimization with intelligent batching, retry, and caching to minimize API calls and costs

Prerequisites

Before creating an FDA credential, you need to obtain an API Key Value from the FDA OpenFDA API. The API Key Value is required to authenticate with the FDA OpenFDA API.

To obtain your API Key Value, you need to register for an API key from the FDA OpenFDA API. Once you have registered, you can generate an API key from the FDA OpenFDA API authentication page. The API Key Value is sent as the api_key query parameter for all API requests to the FDA OpenFDA API. For detailed information about API key setup and authentication, refer to the FDA OpenFDA API documentation.

Authenticate

Credentials required

Field	Required	Secret	Description
API Key Value	Yes	Yes

Create a credential in Nexla

1. After selecting the data source/destination type, click the Add Credential tile to open the Add New Credential overlay.

New Credential Overlay – FDA

2. Enter a name for the credential in the Credential Name field and a short, meaningful description in the Credential Description field.

3. Enter your FDA API Key Value in the API Key Value field. This is the API key you obtained from the FDA OpenFDA API authentication page. The API Key Value is sent as the api_key query parameter for all API requests to the FDA OpenFDA API.

   Keep your API Key Value secure and do not share it publicly. The API Key Value provides access to the FDA OpenFDA API and should be treated as sensitive information. The API Key Value is sent as the api_key query parameter for all API requests to the FDA OpenFDA API. For detailed information about obtaining and managing API keys, see the FDA OpenFDA API documentation.

4. Click the Save button at the bottom of the overlay. The newly added credential will now appear in a tile on the Authenticate screen during data source/destination creation.

Use as a data source

To create a new data flow, navigate to the Integrate section, and click the New Data Flow button. Select the FDA connector tile, then select the credential that will be used to connect to the FDA OpenFDA API, and click Next; or, create a new FDA credential for use in this flow.

Endpoint templates

Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure data sources to ingest data from common FDA OpenFDA endpoints. Select the endpoint from which this source will fetch data from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Available endpoint templates are listed in the expandable boxes below.

Veterinary Events

This endpoint retrieves veterinary event data from the FDA OpenFDA API. Use this endpoint when you need to access animal and veterinary event information, adverse event reports, or veterinary safety data from the FDA.

• This endpoint automatically retrieves all veterinary events from the FDA OpenFDA API. No additional configuration is required beyond selecting this endpoint template.
• The endpoint uses GET requests to https://api.fda.gov/animalandveterinary/event.json?api_key={api_key}&skip={skip}&limit={limit} where {api_key} is your API Key Value from the credential configuration, {skip} is the pagination offset, and {limit} is the page size. The endpoint URL is automatically constructed based on the FDA OpenFDA API base URL and pagination parameters.
• The endpoint uses offset-based pagination, automatically fetching additional pages as needed. Pagination starts from offset 0 and increments by the page size (100 records per page by default). Nexla will continue fetching pages until all available veterinary events are retrieved.
• The endpoint will return all veterinary events. The response data is extracted from the results array in the API response ($.results[*]), with each veterinary event record processed individually. The response also includes metadata in the meta object ($.meta), which is automatically included in the response.

This endpoint returns veterinary event data from the FDA OpenFDA API. The endpoint uses offset-based pagination (iteration.type: paging.incrementing.offset) through the skip and limit query parameters. Pagination starts from offset 0 and increments by the page size (100 records per page by default). The response data path is $.results[*], which extracts all items from the results array in the API response. The response also includes metadata in the meta object ($.meta), which is automatically included. For detailed information about veterinary events and example API queries, see the FDA OpenFDA API documentation.

Product Labeling

This endpoint retrieves drug product labeling data from the FDA OpenFDA API. Use this endpoint when you need to access drug labeling information, product labels, or drug safety data from the FDA.

• This endpoint automatically retrieves all product labeling data from the FDA OpenFDA API. No additional configuration is required beyond selecting this endpoint template.
• The endpoint uses GET requests to https://api.fda.gov/drug/label.json?api_key={api_key}&skip={skip}&limit={limit} where {api_key} is your API Key Value from the credential configuration, {skip} is the pagination offset, and {limit} is the page size. The endpoint URL is automatically constructed based on the FDA OpenFDA API base URL and pagination parameters.
• The endpoint uses offset-based pagination, automatically fetching additional pages as needed. Pagination starts from offset 0 and increments by the page size (100 records per page by default). Nexla will continue fetching pages until all available product labeling data is retrieved.
• The endpoint will return all product labeling data. The response data is extracted from the results array in the API response ($.results[*]), with each product labeling record processed individually. The response also includes metadata in the meta object ($.meta), which is automatically included in the response.

This endpoint returns drug product labeling data from the FDA OpenFDA API. The endpoint uses offset-based pagination (iteration.type: paging.incrementing.offset) through the skip and limit query parameters. Pagination starts from offset 0 and increments by the page size (100 records per page by default). The response data path is $.results[*], which extracts all items from the results array in the API response. The response also includes metadata in the meta object ($.meta), which is automatically included. For detailed information about product labeling and example API queries, see the FDA OpenFDA API documentation.

Once the selected endpoint template has been configured, click the Test button to the right of the endpoint selection menu to retrieve a sample of the data that will be fetched. Sample data will be displayed in the Endpoint Test Result panel on the right, allowing you to verify that the source is configured correctly before saving.

Manual configuration

FDA data sources can also be manually configured to ingest data from any valid FDA OpenFDA API endpoint, including endpoints not covered by the pre-built templates, chained API calls, or custom request parameters. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, endpoint URL, date/time and lookup macros, path to data, metadata, and request headers.

FDA OpenFDA API endpoints typically follow the pattern https://api.fda.gov/{endpoint_path}.json or https://api.fda.gov/{endpoint_path}.xml, and require API Key authentication via the api_key query parameter, which is handled automatically by your credential configuration. Responses typically use a results array structure ($.results[*]) for list endpoints. For detailed information about FDA OpenFDA API endpoints, see the FDA OpenFDA API documentation.

Once all of the relevant settings have been configured, click the Create button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the new FDA data source. Nexla will now begin ingesting data from the configured endpoint and will organize any data that it finds into one or more Nexsets.