ChEMBL

name: ChEMBL
description: ChEMBL is a manually curated database of bioactive molecules with drug-like properties, maintained by the EMBL-EBI.
  It provides a REST API for accessing bioactive molecules, drug targets, bioactivity data, approved drugs, clinical trial
  compounds, and cheminformatics utilities to support drug discovery research.
image: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/static/chembl/img/chembl_logo.png
url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- name: ChEMBL Data API
  description: REST API providing access to ChEMBL database content including bioactive molecules, drug targets, bioactivity
    measurements, approved drugs, assay data, and clinical trial compound information.
  image: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/static/chembl/img/chembl_logo.png
  humanURL: https://chembl.gitbook.io/chembl-interface-documentation/web-services/chembl-data-web-services
  baseURL: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/
  version: ChEMBL_37
  tags:
  - Drug Discovery
  - Bioactivity
  - Molecules
  - Cheminformatics
  - Life Sciences
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://chembl.gitbook.io/chembl-interface-documentation/web-services/chembl-data-web-services
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/docs
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/openapi.json
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/about/terms-of-use/
  contact:
  - FN: ChEMBL Team
    email: chembl-help@ebi.ac.uk
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/
  resources:
  - name: Activity
    description: Activity values recorded in an assay
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/activity
  - name: Assay
    description: Experimental protocol and result details from source documents and datasets
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/assay
  - name: ATC Classification
    description: WHO Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical classification system for drugs
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/atc_class
  - name: Binding Site
    description: Target binding site definitions used in assays
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/binding_site
  - name: Biotherapeutic
    description: Biotherapeutic molecules including HELM notation and sequence data
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/biotherapeutic
  - name: Cell Line
    description: Cell line information used in assays
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/cell_line
  - name: ChEMBL ID Lookup
    description: Identify entity type for a given ChEMBL ID
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/chembl_id_lookup
  - name: Compound Record
    description: Occurrence of a compound in a specific document
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/compound_record
  - name: Compound Structural Alert
    description: Structural anomalies and alerts identified in compounds
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/compound_structural_alert
  - name: Document
    description: Source documents and datasets from which assay data is derived
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/document
  - name: Document Similarity
    description: Documents similar to a given source document
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/document_similarity
  - name: Document Term
    description: Keywords extracted from a document using the TextRank algorithm
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/document_term
  - name: Drug
    description: Approved drugs information including applicants, patent numbers, and research codes
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/drug
  - name: Drug Indication
    description: Drug-disease associations with clinical trial and regulatory references
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/drug_indication
  - name: Drug Warning
    description: Safety information for withdrawn or black-box warned drugs
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/drug_warning
  - name: GO Slim
    description: Gene ontology slim classifications for targets
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/go_slim
  - name: Image
    description: SVG molecular structure image representations
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/image
  - name: Mechanism
    description: Mechanism of action information for approved drugs
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/mechanism
  - name: Metabolism
    description: Metabolic pathways with substrate, product, and enzyme references
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/metabolism
  - name: Molecule
    description: Molecule information including properties, structural representations, and synonyms
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/molecule
  - name: Molecule Form
    description: Parent-salt relationships for molecules
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/molecule_form
  - name: Organism
    description: Organism classification information
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/organism
  - name: Protein Classification
    description: Target protein family classification hierarchy
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/protein_class
  - name: Similarity
    description: Molecule similarity searching using Tanimoto coefficient
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/similarity
  - name: Source
    description: Source information for documents and datasets
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/source
  - name: Status
    description: API operational status and ChEMBL database version information
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/status
  - name: Substructure
    description: Molecular substructure searching
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/substructure
  - name: Target
    description: Targets (protein and non-protein) defined in assays
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/target
  - name: Target Component
    description: Target sequence information and component details
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/target_component
  - name: Target Relation
    description: Inter-target relationships
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/target_relation
  - name: Tissue
    description: Tissue classification information
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/tissue
  - name: X-Ref
    description: Cross-references to external chemical and biological databases
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/xref_source
- name: ChEMBL Cheminformatics Utilities API
  description: Cheminformatics utility services (ChEMBL Beaker) providing chemical structure standardization, physico-chemical
    property calculation, format conversion, and structural analysis tools powered by RDKit and the ChEMBL Structure Pipeline.
  image: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/static/chembl/img/chembl_logo.png
  humanURL: https://chembl.gitbook.io/chembl-interface-documentation/web-services/cheminformatic-utils-web-services
  baseURL: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/utils/
  version: ChEMBL_37
  tags:
  - Cheminformatics
  - Structure Standardization
  - Drug Discovery
  - Life Sciences
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://chembl.gitbook.io/chembl-interface-documentation/web-services/cheminformatic-utils-web-services
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/utils/docs
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/about/terms-of-use/
  contact:
  - FN: ChEMBL Team
    email: chembl-help@ebi.ac.uk
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/
  resources:
  - name: Standardize
    description: Apply ChEMBL Structure Pipeline standardization to molecules
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/utils/standardize
  - name: Check
    description: Check a molecule for issues using ChEMBL Structure Pipeline
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/utils/check
  - name: Exclude
    description: Identify structures that would be excluded from ChEMBL
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/utils/exclude
  - name: Get Parent
    description: Remove salts and solvates using ChEMBL Structure Pipeline
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/utils/getParent
  - name: Descriptors
    description: Calculate all RDKit physico-chemical descriptors for a molecule
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/utils/descriptors
  - name: ChEMBL Descriptors
    description: Calculate ChEMBL-specific physico-chemical descriptors
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/utils/chemblDescriptors
  - name: Status
    description: Operational status and version of the cheminformatics utilities service
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/utils/status
common:
- type: Authentication
  value: None - public API, no key required
- type: Formats
  value: JSON, XML, YAML, SDF (compounds), SVG (images)
- type: Pagination
  value: Offset-based pagination with configurable limit (default 20 records per page)
- type: Filtering
  value: URL-friendly query language with operators including exact, contains, startswith, endswith, regex, gt/gte, lt/lte,
    range, in, isnull, and full-text search
- type: License
  url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
  value: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/about/terms-of-use/
- type: PythonClient
  url: https://github.com/chembl/chembl_webresource_client
  value: Official Python client available via pip install chembl_webresource_client
- type: Status
  url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/status/
maintainers:
- FN: ChEMBL Team
  email: chembl-help@ebi.ac.uk
  url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/
tags:
- Drug Discovery
- Bioactivity
- Molecules
- Cheminformatics
- Life Sciences
- Bioinformatics
- Pharmacology
- EMBL-EBI