| Abstract | | The intention of this article is to briefly explain the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification system (developed by the Nordic Council on Medicines), which is an attempt to develop an international (universal) system of classification for all pharmaceutical products. The main prupose of ATC system is to be a useful tool in presenting drug consumption statistics. But there are also some suggestions that it would be used on a far wider scale: as a uniform national terminology of medicinal substances, as a uniform classification system for general medical or pharmaceutical reference books and computerized data bases; as a product code to be printed on each package; as an identification code for single tablets, capsules, etc., where this is possible; and as an alternative to the "in-house" classification systems used by pharmaceutical companies. According to the Slovenian regulatory legislation for Drugs all active substances have to be stated by their international non-proprietary name (INN) indicated in Latin. This was the main reason for us to transplate the whole (all five levels) ATC classification in Slovenian language and in Latin.
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