When you pick a medicine in PillBox, the details that fill in — the brand, form, active ingredients, strengths, and cost information — come from two official Australian data sources, both bundled inside the app:
- the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), and
- the Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT), part of SNOMED CT‑AU.
PillBox ships with a prepared copy of both, so searching and browsing medicine details works entirely on your phone. Nothing you type — no search, no medication — is ever sent to the PBS, to AMT, or to us. See the Privacy Policy.
Source 1 — Australia's PBS
The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is the Australian Government programme that subsidises prescription medicines. It's published by the Department of Health and Aged Care through the official PBS data service.
The PBS is what PillBox searches. When you start typing, the suggestions come from the list of PBS‑subsidised medicines. Picking one gives PillBox the medicine's identity: its drug name and brand, its form, the PBS item code, pack size and repeats, its therapeutic class, the other brands sold as the same medicine, and any brand‑premium cost signal.
Source 2 — the AMT (SNOMED CT‑AU)
The Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT) is the national standard that gives every Australian medicine a precise, coded identity. It's part of SNOMED CT‑AU — the Australian edition of the international clinical terminology SNOMED CT — and is published by the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA).
Where the PBS describes a medicine mostly in text, the AMT models it as structured, coded facts — each active ingredient linked to its own strength value and unit. PillBox uses the AMT to make the product details more accurate:
- Typed ingredient strengths — each active ingredient's strength comes straight from the AMT's coded value, rather than being read out of a text description. This is especially important for combination products (like paracetamol + codeine), where matching each ingredient to the right strength by hand can go wrong.
- A clean brand name — e.g. Panadol Osteo rather than a longer sponsor string.
- Typed pack size, and, for some products, device and container details.
- ARTG identifiers — the medicine's registration number(s) on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, shown as a link out to the TGA (see Finding your medicine).
- Substance identity — so PillBox can tell when two of your medications share the same active ingredient, even when they list it under slightly different salt names. This powers the "Shares active ingredients" note.
What the AMT covers today. In this version, the AMT is used to enrich the PBS medicines PillBox already knows about — it makes their details better, but it doesn't yet add new, non‑PBS medicines to the search. Widening the search to the full AMT catalogue (over‑the‑counter products, supplements, and non‑subsidised medicines) is planned for a future update. Until then, anything not on the PBS is still added manually, exactly as before.
When a medicine's strength can't be resolved from the AMT, PillBox falls back to reading it from the PBS text — so you always get the best information available for that product.
Attribution
Both sources are used under their official terms, and PillBox retains every copyright notice in full. You can read both attributions at the bottom of the "Data from the PBS & AMT" panel on any linked medication — tap PBS data © Commonwealth of Australia to expand them.
- PBS data is © Commonwealth of Australia, reproduced with permission under the Department of Health and Aged Care's copyright terms. PillBox redistributes it unmodified and retains all copyright notices.
- Medicine terminology is derived from SNOMED CT‑AU and the Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT), © Commonwealth of Australia, developed by the Australian Digital Health Agency. This material includes SNOMED Clinical Terms® (SNOMED CT®), used by permission of SNOMED International — "SNOMED" and "SNOMED CT" are registered trademarks of SNOMED International, all rights reserved. The terminology is provided to you for personal, non‑commercial use in Australia under the Australian National Terminology Licence (ANTL).
Because the AMT is licensed for use in Australia, PillBox is offered on the Australian App Store only.
PillBox is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Department of Health and Aged Care, the Australian Digital Health Agency, Services Australia, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), SNOMED International, or the PBS.
Where to learn more
The data services PillBox draws on are all public. If you'd like to check something at the source:
- PBS — pbs.gov.au (the official schedule and medicine listings)
- Australian Medicines Terminology / SNOMED CT‑AU — healthterminologies.gov.au, operated by the National Clinical Terminology Service at the Australian Digital Health Agency
- SNOMED International — snomed.org
- Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) / TGA — tga.gov.au
- Consumer Medicine Information — healthdirect.gov.au/medicines
How the data stays up to date
Both the PBS and the AMT publish an updated release every month — brands come and go, prices change, strengths are corrected, and new medicines are added.
PillBox's copy of both is refreshed through app updates: each new version ships with a recent snapshot. The provenance line at the bottom of the panel shows exactly how current your copy is — for example, PBS schedule 4664 · AMT 30 June 2026 · updated 24 Jun 2026.
What this means in practice:
- Keeping PillBox updated keeps the medicine data current.
- Between app updates, the data can be a little behind the live PBS and AMT — usually by no more than a few weeks.
- Anything you've already linked keeps working regardless; the snapshot only affects new searches and the reference details shown in the panel.
If something you see in PillBox disagrees with what your pharmacist tells you or what's on the official PBS or TGA website, trust your pharmacist and the official website — and take it as a sign to update the app.