Cortellis Drug Database MCP server for AI agents

The Cortellis MCP Server provides a convenient interface for searching drugs and exploring ontology terms in the Cortellis database. It allows you to access comprehensive pharmaceutical data through either a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server or an HTTP server.

Installation

To install the Cortellis MCP Server, use npm:

npm install @uh-joan/cortellis-mcp-server

Configuration

Before using the server, you need to set up the required environment variables:

CORTELLIS_USERNAME=your_username
CORTELLIS_PASSWORD=your_password
USE_HTTP=true  # Optional: run as HTTP server
PORT=3000      # Optional: specify port for HTTP server

Running the Server

You can run the server in two modes:

# As MCP server
npx cortellis-mcp-server

# As HTTP server
USE_HTTP=true PORT=3000 npx cortellis-mcp-server

Available Tools

Search Drugs

The search_drugs tool allows you to search for drugs in the Cortellis database with various filters:

{
  "tool-name": "search_drugs",
  "Tool_Parameters": {
    "query": "obesity",
    "phase": "C3",
    "indication": "238"
  }
}

Optional parameters:

query - Raw search query
company - Company ID (e.g., "18614")
indication - Indication ID (e.g., "238" for Obesity)
action - Target specific action
phase - Development status (S, DR, CU, C1-C3, PR, R, L, OL, NDR, DX, W)
phase_terminated - Last phase before NDR/DX
technology - Drug technology
drug_name - Name of the drug
country - Country ID
offset - For pagination
company_size - Company size based on market capitalization
developmentStatusDate - Status change date, format: RANGE(>=YYYY-MM-DD;<=YYYY-MM-DD)
historic - Set to true for historical status queries

Explore Ontology

The explore_ontology tool helps you discover taxonomy terms:

{
  "tool-name": "explore_ontology",
  "Tool_Parameters": {
    "indication": "diabetes"
  }
}

At least one of these parameters is required:

term - Generic search term
category - Category to search within
action - Target specific action
indication - Disease/condition
company - Company name
drug_name - Drug name
target - Drug target
technology - Drug technology

Get Drug Details

Retrieve complete information about a specific drug:

{
  "tool-name": "get_drug",
  "Tool_Parameters": {
    "id": "101964"
  }
}

Get Drug SWOT Analysis

Obtain SWOT analysis for a specific drug:

{
  "tool-name": "get_drug_swot",
  "Tool_Parameters": {
    "id": "101964"
  }
}

Get Drug Financial Data

Retrieve financial data and forecasts for a drug:

{
  "tool-name": "get_drug_financial",
  "Tool_Parameters": {
    "id": "101964"
  }
}

Get Company Details

Retrieve complete information about a specific company:

{
  "tool-name": "get_company",
  "Tool_Parameters": {
    "id": "12345"
  }
}

Search Companies

Search for companies in the Cortellis database:

{
  "tool-name": "search_companies",
  "Tool_Parameters": {
    "company_name": "Pfizer"
  }
}

Optional parameters include query, hq_country, deals_count, indications, actions, technologies, company_size, status, and offset.

Search Deals

Search for deals in the Cortellis database:

{
  "tool-name": "search_deals",
  "Tool_Parameters": {
    "dealTitle": "licensing"
  }
}

Optional parameters include query, dealDrugNamesAll, indications, dealDrugCompanyPartnerIndications, dealPhaseHighestStart, dealPhaseHighestNow, dealStatus, dealSummary, dealTitleSummary, technologies, dealType, actionsPrimary, sortBy, and offset.

HTTP API Endpoints

When running in HTTP mode (USE_HTTP=true), these REST endpoints are available:

POST /search_drugs - Search for drugs
POST /explore_ontology - Search taxonomy terms
GET /drug/:id - Get drug record by ID
GET /drug/:id/swot - Get SWOT analysis for a drug
GET /drug/:id/financial - Get financial data for a drug
GET /company/:id - Get company record by ID
POST /search_companies - Search for companies
POST /search_deals - Search for deals

Installing on Claude Desktop

To use with Claude Desktop:

Ensure Node.js is installed
Go to: Settings > Developer > Edit Config
Add the following to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cortellis": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@uh-joan/cortellis-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "CORTELLIS_USERNAME": "your_username",
        "CORTELLIS_PASSWORD": "your_password"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop to start exploring drug development data

Docker Deployment

To run using Docker:

docker build -t cortellis-mcp-server .
docker run -i --env-file .env cortellis-mcp-server

How to add this MCP server to Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > MCP and click "Add new global MCP server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "cursor-rules-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "cursor-rules-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explictly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.