The General Practice Research Database contains detailed medical information on primary care patients in the UK, anonymised and collected directly from their computerised GP records.

The large and representative patient sample contained within the GPRD make it an ideal source of data for the identification and characterisation of key patient segments and to measure unmet need and opportunities for new products and new indications, even for rare conditions. It can also be used to support regulatory submissions for POM to P switches, to identify how diseases are currently treated by constructing treatment pathways, to illuminate product switching patterns, and to understand overall levels of adherence to treatment guidelines.

With about 5 million current patient records and over 69 million patient years of data, it is the world's largest source of longitudinal primary care data covering the full cross-section of the population in the UK. GPRD contains comprehensive data from real life clinical practice on diagnoses, prescribing, co-prescription, co-morbidity, dosage details, off-label prescription, and patient age, sex and other demographic details.