Radar
Watch drugs, makers, markets, counties and table views. Radar checks them against FDA and CMS data and shows what changed since your last review.
Open Radar -- in the sidebar under Workspace.
Radar is monitoring. You add the things you follow, and Radar checks them against FDA and CMS data every time you open the page. It tells you when a watched drug gets a new generic, goes into shortage, is recalled, moves in price or nears the end of its protection, and it keeps each change until you mark it seen.
Grouping watches into lists, sharing them with your team or a client, the print-ready brief, CSV export and calendar dates are covered in Radar Lists and Sharing.
What you can watch
| Kind | What Radar checks |
|---|---|
| Drug | Generic or biosimilar competition (makers, ANDA listings or licensed biosimilars, first generic year), staged generics (ANDA filings that passed FDA review but are not marketed yet), protection end date, NADAC price and the generic alternative, active FDA shortages, recalls, and marketing end dates the drug's own maker sets on its packages in the NDC Directory |
| Maker | A company's Orange Book portfolio: listings, molecules, trade names, staged generic filings and latest approval year |
| Market | One state plus one primary specialty: individual providers in the NPI registry, how many appear in the CMS Medicare provider summary, and new entrants (individual NPIs first issued in the latest 6 months) |
| County | HRSA shortage-area (HPSA) designations and their top score, and underserved-area (MUA) designations and their best IMU score |
| View | Any filtered table: the number of rows that match its filters |
An expanded drug row also shows context that Radar does not track for changes: Medicare Part B spending, how far the generic price fell after entry, originators, orphan exclusivity and brand names.
Watch limits
| Plan | Watches per kind |
|---|---|
| Regular | 3 |
| Pro | 25 |
| Teams | 25 |
The limit applies to each kind separately, so a Pro account can hold 25 drugs and 25 makers and 25 counties, and so on. The add box shows how many of each you use, for example Drug 2/3.
Adding watches
From the Radar page
The add box sits at the top of the Watch board.
- Pick Drug, Maker or County.
- Type a name and pick a suggestion. Drug suggestions are marked Brand, Molecule or Biologic. For a county, pick the state first.
- The watch appears on the board.
A drug name must match the Orange Book or the Purple Book; otherwise Radar says it cannot track it. Makers and counties must be picked from the suggestions.
Paste a list (drugs only) adds a whole set at once. Paste names one per line (commas and tabs also work), then click Add to radar. Radar reports what happened to each name: Added, Already on radar, Not matched (try the brand or full molecule name), Drug database did not answer (try again) or over your limit. Names that were not added stay in the box so you can fix them.
If a list is selected when you add, the new watch also joins that list.
From other pages
- Drugs -- the Watch button on Drug Profile, and the watch icon on Patent Cliff and Shortages Tracker rows.
- Makers -- the watch icon on rows of a Drug Profile's Makers tab (small-molecule drugs).
- Markets -- on the Providers table, filter to exactly one State (or License State) and one Primary Specialty, then click Watch in the table header.
- Counties -- Watch on the Access tab of a provider record, or the watch icon on county rows in Territory Brief.
- Views -- filter any table, then click Watch in its header. Clear the table search first. A view with too many filter values cannot be watched, and tables that need Pro or Teams can only be watched on those plans.
Each watch can carry a private note: expand its row and click Add note.
A new watch is tagged New and shows baseline in place of changes. Tracking starts from that first check, so changes appear from your next visit.
The Radar page
The header says how many watches Radar checked and when. On Pro and Teams, with at least one watched drug, it also shows Alerts on and the time of the next alert check. On Regular it reads Email alerts on Pro and Teams.
Opening Radar uses one credit, like other data pages.
The watch board
The board title reads Watch board / All, or the name of the list you picked. Its tabs:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Table | Every watched drug, one row each |
| Protection timeline | Watched drugs whose protection ends within 24 months, on one line from now to 24 months out. Dates within 9 months are highlighted, estimated dates are dashed, and an amber dot marks a drug that changed. Click a drug to open its row in Table |
| Makers, Markets, Counties, Views | Your watches of that kind, with a count. An amber dot means one of them changed |
| What changed | Every change since your last review, with a count |
| Shared makers | Generic and biosimilar makers marketed or staged in two or more drugs of the current selection, with a count. See Shared makers |
| Activity | Follow-ups due and the log of changes you marked seen. See Activity |
The right side of the header shows which review the changes compare against (for example Compared with your review of a date), a changed chip that opens What changed, and on the Table tab a sort menu: Changes first, Protection ends soonest or Name A-Z.
When anything changed, an amber bar under the header sums it up (changes, watches, high impact count). Click Review changes to open What changed.
Status tiles
Four tiles above the drug table count your watched drugs:
| Tile | Counts | Note under it |
|---|---|---|
| Changed | Watches with a change since your last review | Out of all your watches |
| In shortage | Drugs with an active FDA shortage | How many report limited supply |
| Protection ends | Drugs whose protection ends within 24 months | The nearest one, in months (est when estimated) |
| With recalls | Drugs with at least one matched recall | How many have a Class I recall on record |
Click a tile to show only those drugs in Table and Protection timeline. Click it again, or the x on the filter pill, to show all.
Drug rows
| Column | Shows |
|---|---|
| Drug | Name, with tags such as Bio, New, Incomplete data, Shortage and Class I recall |
| Competition | Contestability tier: Greenfield, Open, Crowded or Eroded (see the glossary) |
| Price / alternative | NADAC price per unit, and the generic or biosimilar price when there is one |
| Protection | When protection ends, and whether a patent or an exclusivity sets the date |
| Makers | How many generic or biosimilar makers are listed |
| Changes | One icon per change category, with a red dot when a change is high impact |
Some columns hide on narrow screens. Click a row to expand it:
- Changes since your last review -- each change, or No changes yet.
- Current profile -- FDA and CMS data as of today: Competition, generic or biosimilar makers, Runway, Staged, Price, After generics, Part B, Supply, Recalls and Brands. A line with a recent change is marked Changed.
- Who prescribes it (Pro and Teams) -- pick a state and click Find top prescribers for the top Medicare Part D prescribers of the drug by claims, with specialty, city and phone. Open all in Prov Drugs opens the full table, and Save as list turns it into a lead list. Each lookup counts against your credits.
- Lists and Add note.
To stop watching, click the x on the row and confirm. Removing a watch deletes its saved baseline and change history; watching it again starts fresh.
Maker, market, county and view rows
Click a row to see its changes since your last review, its current figures, its lists and its note.
- Markets add a New entrants block: individual NPIs in the market first issued in the latest 6 months, the newest by name, with Open all in Providers and Save as list. A clinician keeps one NPI for life, so someone who moved in from another state is not counted.
- Views list their filters and current row count, with Open in the table and, for tables that feed lead lists, Save as list.
What changed
The What changed tab lists every change since your last review, grouped by watch. Watches with a high impact change come first.
- Filter chips narrow it to one category: Recall, Supply, Protection, Competition, Price or Counts.
- Each change shows its category, a plain title, the old and new value, the source and that source's refresh date, and links: Profile (the exact row on Drug Profile) or Open, plus FDA record for new generic makers, staged generics and recalls.
- Details jumps to the drug's row on the board.
- Mark seen clears one watch. Mark all seen clears everything. Changes stay until you mark them seen; opening the page does not clear them.
When nothing changed, the tab says You're caught up.
Change types
| Category | Changes Radar reports |
|---|---|
| Recall | A new recall on record, with its class, firm and start date |
| Supply | Entered active shortage; shortage resolved; the drug's own maker set a marketing end date on brand, generic or authorized generic packages in the NDC Directory (repackagers are ignored) |
| Protection | Protection end date moved later or earlier, newly on file, or no longer on file; protection now ends within 24, 12, 6 or 3 months; the last patent or exclusivity expired; for biologics, reference exclusivity lapsed |
| Competition | New generic or biosimilar maker; a maker no longer listed; new staged generic. For maker watches: Orange Book listings, portfolio molecules, trade names and staged generic filings |
| Price | The NADAC price per unit of the drug or its generic moved 5% or more |
| Counts | Market, county and table-view figures changed |
Radar reports a maker, staged generic or recall as new only when the source dates it as new, so an old record that turns up late in the data does not show as news. Long lists are summarized as "N more" with a link to the full list.
High impact
These changes carry a High impact flag and sort to the top:
- Entered active shortage
- Class I recall
- Protection ends within 6 months or less
- Last patent or exclusivity expired, or reference exclusivity lapsed
Why it matters
Competition and protection changes that are not minor carry a Why it matters line when Radar has a generic price benchmark for the drug: either what its own generic sold at, as a share of the brand price, two years after entry, or the median for comparable drugs that lost exclusivity.
Activity
The Activity tab of the Watch board has two parts:
- Follow-ups due -- leads in lists you own whose follow-up date has passed and that are not marked Won or Lost, oldest first (up to 12), with how many days overdue. One page covers both "what changed" and "what I owe someone".
- Log -- every change you marked seen, dated, with Open on profile where it applies. Click Add note on an entry to record what you did with it, for example "Sent to client Oct 7". Clear log empties it.
Notifications and email
Sidebar badge
A count next to Radar in the sidebar shows how many watches changed since your last review. It drops as you mark changes seen.
Notification bell
Twice a day Radar checks every watch and posts each new change to the notification bell in the top bar, once, linked to its evidence. A watch with many changes gets the first few plus a "more changes" line. This works on every plan.
Instant alerts (Pro and Teams)
Five changes on watched drugs are treated as time sensitive:
| Alert | Trigger |
|---|---|
| First competition | First generic (or first biosimilar) maker appears on record |
| Shortage entered | At least one presentation entered an active FDA shortage |
| Class I recall | A new Class I recall, the FDA's most serious classification |
| Protection closed | The last patent or exclusivity expired, or a biologic's reference exclusivity lapsed |
| Protection moved | The protection end date moved by 90 days or more, in either direction |
Alerts are checked twice a day and must show on two consecutive checks before they are sent, so a passing upstream glitch does not reach you. Each alert goes to the notification bell and, unless you turned it off, by email with a link to the evidence. Alerts track separately from your page review, so reading Radar does not suppress an alert.
Weekly digest (Pro and Teams)
Every Monday, Pro and Teams accounts get an email listing the watches (drugs, makers, markets, counties and table views) that changed since your last Radar visit. No email is sent when nothing changed. Lists can also send their own Monday brief; see Radar Lists and Sharing.
Turn either email off in Settings under Email notifications: Instant radar alerts and Weekly radar digest. Turning off the weekly digest also stops Monday list briefs.
Product tour
The first time you open Radar with at least one watch, a short tour walks through the add box, the status tiles, the board tabs, lists, the client brief and export. To replay it, open Settings and click Reset tutorials under Product tutorials.
When data is incomplete
If a source does not answer during a check, the affected watch is tagged Incomplete data and the missing figures are not compared. Radar will not report "19 makers became 0" because a source page failed. Changes from the other sources are still tracked, and comparison resumes once the full data loads.
When Radar changes how a figure is worked out, tracking restarts for the affected watches. The board then reads Tracking restarted today, and changes show again from your next visit.