BioCatalystFeed

Website: https://biocat.ai · Contact: contact@biocat.ai

An open-source catalyst feed for biotech: see what changed across clinical trials, FDA and EMA 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

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

python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate   # macOS/Homebrew Python blocks global pip installs (PEP 668)
pip install biocatalystfeed
# no venv needed:  uvx --from biocatalystfeed bcf --help    or    pipx install biocatalystfeed

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 ema search --status Opinion --since 2026-09-01          # latest CHMP opinions (EU)
bcf adcom upcoming --area drugs biologics                   # scheduled FDA advisory committee meetings

# watches: first run = baseline, later runs report what changed (cron it daily)
bcf trials --db bcf.db watch --name obesity --condition obesity --phase PHASE3 --rss obesity.rss
bcf trials --db bcf.db changes --name obesity --min-severity critical   # terminations, endpoint rewrites
bcf papers --db bcf.db watch --name mdgl --affiliation "Madrigal Pharmaceuticals" --json-feed mdgl.feed.json

Global flags such as --db go after the tool name and before the subcommand: bcf trials --db bcf.db changes, not bcf --db bcf.db trials changes or bcf trials changes --db bcf.db. bcf trials changes prints a readable one-line-per-change summary; add --json for one JSON object per line. PubMed --since/--until filter on the publication date shown in the output (Europe PMC uses first-publication date).

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, ema_medicines, fda_adcom_meetings, snapshot_* / *_changes_since, and changes_feed (RSS / JSON Feed).

Configuration

How it compares

Facts about DataLookout are from datalookout.com, its /citeline-alternative and /clinical-trial-monitoring pages (checked 2026-10-21 PT). We have not tested their product. Fuller, cited comparison: docs/COMPARISON.md.

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.

Trial change severity (v0.3.0)

Every trial change carries severity, and date changes carry shift_days:

• critical: status moves to TERMINATED / SUSPENDED / WITHDRAWN, a why-stopped reason appears, or the primary endpoint(s) are rewritten.
• notable: other status or phase changes, new trials, lead-sponsor changes, results posted, arm or intervention changes, enrollment changes of 20% or more, start / primary completion / completion dates moved 30+ days.
• minor: everything else (small date or enrollment tweaks, site-count changes, title edits).

Filter with --min-severity notable|critical on bcf trials watch / changes, or min_severity in the MCP tool trial_changes_since. Snapshots made by older versions start tracking the new fields on their next run, so upgrading doesn't produce a burst of false changes.

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 / Testing

git clone https://github.com/biocatalystfeed/biocatalystfeed && cd biocatalystfeed
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e '.[dev]'
pytest                      # offline tests; live-API tests are skipped by default
TRIALWATCH_LIVE=1 pytest    # also run tests that call the real public APIs (needs network; slower)

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, EMA, the Office of the Federal Register, EMBL-EBI/Europe PMC, or bioRxiv/medRxiv.