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Nature of Business	9 Months Ended
Nature of Business	Sep. 30, 2011
Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]
Nature of Business	Nature of Business The Medicines Company (the Company) is a global pharmaceutical company focused on advancing the treatment of critical care patients through the delivery of innovative, cost-effective medicines to the worldwide hospital marketplace. The Company has three marketed products, Angiomax^® (bivalirudin), Cleviprex^® (clevidipine butyrate) injectable emulsion and a ready-to-use formulation of Argatroban. The Company also has a pipeline of acute and intensive care hospital products in development, including three late-stage development product candidates, cangrelor, oritavancin and MDCO-157, a novel intravenous formulation of clopidogrel bisulfate, and two early stage development product candidates, MDCO-2010 and MDCO-216. The Company believes that its marketed products and its products in development possess favorable attributes that competitive products do not provide, can satisfy unmet medical needs in the acute and intensive care hospital product market and offer, or, in the case of the Company's products in development, have the potential to offer, improved performance to hospital businesses.