About Glossary and translations

A key deliverable of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies is the Glossary. It is a glossary of pharmaceutical terms in English and comprises more than 350 terms, including several terms of relevance for the in-patient pharmaceutical sector. The glossary was developed as part of our work on the development and promotion of a common understanding and language on pharmaceutical issues (for further background information consult the section Methodology).

The Glossary is being regularly extended, revised and uploaded. The WHO Collaborating Centre is working on promoting a common understanding via the translation of the Glossary into national languages.

Online Glossary

The most updated version is available via the online search function.

Suggestion for citation of the online glossary:
WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies (2025): Glossary of pharmaceutical terms. Vienna: Gesundheit Österreich (GÖG / Austrian National Public Health Institute). Available from: ppri.goeg.at/ppri-glossary

The PPRI glossary plus local translations for download can be found below.

English version of the Glossary (last update: August 2025)

The PPRI Glossary in pdf-format (version: August 2025) is available here for download. 

Suggestion for citation: 

Knoll, Verena; Vogler, Sabine (2025): PPRI Glossary of Pharmaceutical Terms. Update 2025. Gesundheit Österreich (GÖG / Austrian National Public Health Institute), Vienna. https://ppri.goeg.at/ppri-glossary/

Previous versions: 

 

Translations

German (last update: 2017)

Pharma_Glossar_deutsch_Update2017.pdf

Russian (last update: 2021)

202109_Glossary_RU.pdf

Glossary_FINAL_RU.pdf (2017)

Spanish (last update: 2012)

Spanish%20Glossary%20final.pdf

 

Thematic glossaries:

Glossary on Medical Devices (2022)

Working definitions of public procurement terms for the “Study on Best Practices in Public Procurement of Medicines”

Working definitions of terms for the "Study supporting the monitoring of availability of medical devices on the EU market"

Working definitions of terms for the "Study on the implementation of  Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2017/745 on medical devices on the EU market"

Working definitions of terms related to biosimilars policies for the study on “Capacity building to support the uptake of biosimilars in a multistakeholder approach” (Version: June 2025)