Pediatric and Neonatal Dosage Handbook price, $114.95 in print vs the Lexidrug and Harriet Lane apps

The Pediatric and Neonatal Dosage Handbook, the book most pharmacists simply call "Taketomo", costs $114.95 for the 31st edition, or $104.95 if you belong to the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. That is the price on the ACCP store in September 2026, for a softcover released on October 7, 2024. What you will not find is an app with the handbook's name on it. The same content lives on inside Lexidrug, the database formerly sold as Lexicomp, and that changes the buying decision more than the cover price does.

So the useful question is not only "how much is the book" but which form of pediatric dosing reference you should pay for: the print handbook, a Lexidrug subscription, a Harriet Lane app, or a full drug database. Here is every option we could price at the source, and who each one suits.

Pediatric dosing references priced side by side

Two things stand out. The print handbook is the cheapest way to own the full Taketomo monograph set outright, at less than four months of Lexidrug. And the Lexidrug app is the only route to the same pediatric content in a form that updates, but only if your package actually includes it.

What the $114.95 handbook gets you

The 31st edition holds 1,323 drug monographs with up to 32 fields of information each, written for neonates and children rather than adapted from adult dosing. Drugs are listed alphabetically and cross-referenced by US and Canadian brand names, which is handy when a transfer letter names a product you do not stock. There are more than 150 extemporaneous preparation recipes, which is the part many hospital and compounding pharmacists buy it for, and more than 100 pages of appendix tables.

This edition added 33 new monographs and updated hundreds of existing ones, including changes driven by new guideline recommendations. The updated appendix covers immune globulin product comparisons, a multivitamin product table and the list of oral medications that should not be crushed or altered. The author is Carol K. Taketomo, PharmD, and the content comes from Lexidrug, which Wolters Kluwer lists among its UpToDate Lexidrug handbooks. Its adult companion, the Drug Information Handbook, is far harder to find: the 33rd edition was out of stock at Amazon and ACCP in September 2026.

The weakness is the one every print reference has. It is frozen on the day it went to press. A child's dose for a drug approved in 2025 is not in it, and neither is any guideline change since.

Is there a Lexicomp Pediatric and Neonatal Dosage Handbook app?

Not under that name. We found no US App Store listing for the handbook itself. The digital version is the Pediatric and Neonatal Lexi-Drugs database, one of the content sets in UpToDate Lexidrug, with more than 300 neonatal monographs carrying up to 45 fields each. It updates continuously, which is the main thing the book cannot do.

The Lexidrug app starts every new individual user on a one month free trial of the Hospital Pharmacist package and then bills $29.99 a month through Apple unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends. The App Store listing shows two in-app purchases at $29.99, the Lexicomp Professional Package and Lexi-COMPLETE, and it does not spell out which databases each contains. Before the trial converts, open a pediatric monograph in the app. If it shows neonatal and pediatric fields, you have the database; if it shows only adult dosing, you are paying for the wrong package. Our Lexicomp subscription cost guide covers the renewal math in more detail.

Over a year, $29.99 a month is $359.88, about three times the book. For a pediatric pharmacist who doses children every day, the updates are worth it. For a family physician who sees a few children a week, the handbook or a Harriet Lane subscription is the better buy.

Pediatric and Neonatal Dosage Handbook vs Harriet Lane

They are different books that often get compared because both sit in pediatric white coats. The Pediatric and Neonatal Dosage Handbook is a formulary: every page is a drug. The Harriet Lane Handbook is a Johns Hopkins residency manual that covers resuscitation, fluids, labs and procedures, with a large formulary chapter at the back.

Residents usually want Harriet Lane because it answers the whole night on call, not just the dose. Its app is cheaper too: Unbound Medicine sells the 23rd edition at $54.95 for the first year with $39.95 renewals, and Skyscape sells its own version at $49.99 a year. The 24th edition of the book came out in 2026, and both apps were still on the 23rd when we checked. Our Harriet Lane Handbook app guide compares the two listings. Pediatric pharmacists, on the other hand, want the depth of a dedicated formulary, which is where Taketomo or Lexidrug wins.

Neonatal and IV dosing need their own source

Neonatal ICU teams rarely rely on a single book. Many work from Micromedex with NeoFax, which hospitals license without a public price. For injectable drugs in children, ASHP's Pediatric Injectable Drugs, the Teddy Bear Book, is the companion reference, at $225 or $171 for ASHP members in its 12th edition. For compatibility questions on shared lines, the adult reference is the former Trissel's handbook; our Trissel's Handbook on Injectable Drugs price page covers its $473 print edition and $49.99 app.

If you need all of that online under one individual login, Elsevier's Clinical Pharmacology covers neonatal and pediatric monographs, includes Harriet Lane Handbook content and Trissel's 2 IV data, and costs $650 a year on its single plan.

Buying for a whole department

Children's hospitals and pediatric units often buy the handbook in multiples, one for each satellite pharmacy and med room. ACCP applies a multi-book discount to three or more single titles in the same transaction, though its product page says quantities of the 31st edition are limited and orders go through customer service by phone. When the order has to clear a budget holder first, a procurement platform that routes the purchase request for approval keeps the order, the quote and the invoice in one place, which beats chasing signatures by email.

Which one to buy

• Pediatric or NICU pharmacist: Lexidrug with the pediatric database confirmed during the trial, with the print handbook as a backup at the counter.
• Pediatric resident: Harriet Lane at $54.95 for the first year. Add the handbook only if your program does not give you Lexidrug.
• Family physician, NP or PA who sees children: the $114.95 handbook, or Harriet Lane if you want an app. Neither needs a monthly bill.
• Compounding pharmacy: the handbook, for its 150+ extemporaneous recipes, which are the reason to own the print copy even with a database login.

Where a dosing book stops

A pediatric dosing reference tells you the right mg/kg for one drug. It does not know that the same child is already on two other drugs that interact, has a reduced creatinine clearance, or carries an allergy flag from another clinic. Those checks happen when you write the prescription, and a book only helps if you look up each one by hand.

Prescriber.io does that part: you enter the prescribing scenario once, and it checks interactions across the full medication list, flags contraindications and allergy blockers, and surfaces renal and hepatic dose adjustments with cited sources. It is decision support for licensed clinicians, from $24 per seat a month billed annually, and you verify every flag and sign. Keep the handbook for the dose. Use a drug interaction checker that reads the whole list for everything around it.