BioCatalystFeed
Website: https://biocat.ai · Contact: contact@biocat.ai
An open-source catalyst feed for biotech: see what changed across clinical trials, FDA actions, NIH grants,
papers/preprints and SEC filings for the companies and drugs you follow. Use it as a CLI, as an MCP server for AI
agents (Claude, Cursor, …), or as an Apify actor.
⚠️ Not investment, legal or medical advice. Data may be incomplete, delayed or wrong; PDUFA dates are unverified
candidates from SEC filings. Always check the linked primary source.
What it does
| Source | Command | What you get |
|---|
| ClinicalTrials.gov API v2 (NLM) | bcf trials | search, sponsor pipelines, diffs: new trials, status/phase/enrollment/date changes |
| openFDA (Drugs@FDA, SPL labels) | bcf fda | approvals (incl. novel NME/BLA flag), submissions, label revisions, diffs |
| NIH RePORTER | bcf grants | grants by org / PI (middle-initial aware) / keyword; new awards, amount changes |
| PubMed + Europe PMC + bioRxiv/medRxiv | bcf papers | papers & preprints, deduplicated by DOI/PMID across sources |
| SEC EDGAR | bcf sec | 8-K mentions of PDUFA dates (UNVERIFIED candidates, linked to the filing) |
| All of the above | bcf profile | one merged company profile (name or ticker) |
Across tools: --exclude TERM … to drop noise, --rank for relevance ordering, and --rss / --json-feed digest
files on every watch (local files you can serve or feed into any reader; nothing is emailed).
Quickstart
pip install biocatalystfeed
source .venv/bin/activate
bcf trials search --sponsor "Viking Therapeutics" --phase PHASE3
bcf papers search --drug resmetirom --since 2026-09-01 --exclude mice rat --rank
bcf grants search --pi "Ioannou, George N" --since 2024-01-01 --no-future
bcf sec pdufa MDGL --since 2023-01-01
bcf profile Lilly MDGL "Viking Therapeutics" --md profiles.md
bcf trials --db bcf.db watch --name obesity --condition obesity --phase PHASE3 --rss obesity.rss
bcf papers --db bcf.db watch --name mdgl --affiliation "Madrigal Pharmaceuticals" --json-feed mdgl.feed.json
The old commands (trialwatch, fdawatch, grantwatch, paperwatch, secwatch, trialwatch-mcp) still work.
MCP server
{"mcpServers": {"biocatalystfeed": {"command": "uvx", "args": ["biocatalystfeed", "mcp"],
"env": {"BIOCATALYSTFEED_DB": "/path/to/bcf.db"}}}}
(or point command at an installed biocatalystfeed-mcp). Listed in the official MCP Registry as
io.github.biocatalystfeed/biocatalystfeed.
Tools include search_trials, sponsor_pipeline, fda_approvals, company_profile, search_grants,
search_papers, sec_pdufa_mentions, snapshot_* / *_changes_since, and changes_feed (RSS / JSON Feed).
Configuration
| Env var | Purpose |
|---|
BIOCATALYSTFEED_CONTACT | contact email put in the SEC User-Agent (SEC fair-access policy). Default is the project contact (contact@biocat.ai); set it to your own contact for heavy SEC use |
SEC_USER_AGENT | full SEC User-Agent override |
NCBI_EMAIL | optional email sent to NCBI E-utilities |
OPENFDA_API_KEY | optional openFDA API key (free at open.fda.gov/apis/authentication); raises daily/minute rate limits. Never logged |
NCBI_API_KEY | optional NCBI E-utilities API key (free from your NCBI account settings); raises the PubMed limit from 3 to 10 req/s. Never logged |
BIOCATALYSTFEED_DB (or TRIALWATCH_DB) | SQLite DB for the MCP server |
FDAWATCH_ALIASES | JSON file extending the company alias table |
How it compares
Facts about DataLookout are from datalookout.com/citeline-alternative (checked 2026-10-12 PT). We have not tested
their product. Fuller, cited comparison: docs/COMPARISON.md.
| BioCatalystFeed (open source) | DataLookout |
|---|
| Price | Free (Apache-2.0); hosted tier planned | Free tier; Pro $49/month |
| Sources | ClinicalTrials.gov, openFDA, NIH RePORTER, PubMed, Europe PMC, bioRxiv/medRxiv, SEC EDGAR | ClinicalTrials.gov |
| Change tracking | Diffs between your own runs (trials: status, phase, enrollment, dates, sponsor, title, why stopped, results; plus FDA, grant, paper and SEC changes) | Daily scan; 13 fields incl. status, enrollment, primary endpoints, interventions, results, site counts, completion dates; changes marked Stopped/Notable/Minor |
| Delivery | CLI, MCP server for AI agents, RSS/JSON Feed files, Apify actor | Morning email digest + dashboard inbox |
| Watch limits | None when self-hosted | Free: 1 sponsor + 1 disease watchlist + 1 saved search; Pro: 10 of each |
| Scheduling | You run it (cron, Apify schedule) | Hosted, daily |
| Setup | Python install | "2 minutes" (their claim) |
Pick DataLookout for a hosted, emailed, ClinicalTrials.gov-only digest. Pick BioCatalystFeed if you want several
sources per company or ticker, agent/MCP access, or to self-host.
Search filters (v0.2.1)
--exclude takes words or phrases (space- or comma-separated); matching is whole-word and case-insensitive, and a
trailing * is a prefix wildcard (--exclude "murin*" rat).--rank scores title hits 3 and other-field hits 1 (simple plurals tolerated), +1 for exact multi-word phrases in
the title and +2 when every query term matches; ties break by newest date. The score is in relevance.
Data sources, limits and etiquette
Built-in throttles follow each source's published policy (e.g. NIH RePORTER 1 req/s, NCBI ≤3 req/s without key, SEC
≤10 req/s with a declared User-Agent, openFDA 1,000 req/day per IP without key). We store metadata and links only
for papers/preprints, never abstracts. Change detection only covers your own runs; there's no historical backfill.
PDUFA dates are regex extractions from 8-K text, not a calendar. Attributions are in NOTICE. Design notes
and per-source terms are in docs/DEVELOPER-NOTES.md.
Hosted tier
A paid hosted version (scheduled watches, persisted history, hosted MCP) is planned. Draft terms:
TERMS.md, PRIVACY.md (drafts, not legal advice, not in effect).
Contributing & licence
See CONTRIBUTING.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md and SECURITY.md (report vulnerabilities privately). Licensed under the Apache License 2.0. BioCatalystFeed is
independent and not endorsed by NLM, NIH, FDA, SEC, EMBL-EBI/Europe PMC, or bioRxiv/medRxiv.