Names given to drugs by the medical industry.

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Do most of these drug names have their bases in the classical languages of Greek and Latin?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I don’t think this is Latin or Greek

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I don’t think this is Latin or Greek

View attachment 166629

The prefix "Hydro" in the word "Hydrochloride" definitely comes the Ancient Greek word for water.

 

[Gloster]

They are more likely from chemical names, some of which are indirectly (often very indirectly) derived from Latin and Greek. Others are just from the ‘imagination’ of some PR or advertising twit.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

The prefix "Hydro" in the word "Hydrochloride" definitely comes the Ancient Greek word for water.

True - Metformin is the more shortened name used which isn't though.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

True - Metformin is the more shortened name used which isn't though.

The prefix "meta" also comes from the Ancient Greek with meanings such as after or before.

I knew that being in the Greek and Latin Classics Stream at St Bede's College, Manchester from the Autumn term in 1956 until the Upper Sixth would eventually have some use...

 

[GRALISTAIR]

The prefix "meta" also comes from the Ancient Greek with meanings such as after or before.

I knew that being in the Greek and Latin Classics Stream at St Bede's College, Manchester from the Autumn term in 1956 until the Upper Sixth would eventually have some use...

I did Latin and Greek at Kirkham Grammar School 1968-1975


Viagra-not Latin or Greek

Viagra - Named for its suggestion of vitality, virility, and virgor and because it rhymes with Niagra, signifying force and endurance. It is also theorized that the name was inspired by the Sanskrit word "vyaghra" which means tiger.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

One of my range of nine assorted medications is called Apixiban...which my ten year old grand-daughter with a good sense of humour calls "Big Pixies Bum"....

 

[Magdalia]

One of my range of nine assorted medications is called Apixiban...which my ten year old grand-daughter with a good sense of humour calls "Big Pixies Bum"....

In the UK names of similar medications often have the same ending to their names.

Apixaban is a direct oral anti coagulant. Others are dabigatran, rivaroxaban and edoxaban. Note that all end in -an.

The same drugs will often have different names in the USA.

 

[najaB]

Do most of these drug names have their bases in the classical languages of Greek and Latin?

Yes and no. Some names are generic and are purely descriptive - for example the metformin hydrochloride above. These chemical names do draw heavily from Latin.

However, most of them are way too long and complex to be used generally, and so the pharmaceutical company will come up with a proprietary name which is easier to remember and market.

As a simple example of the above, sildenafil citrate isn't nearly as marketable as Viagra, and neither N-acetyl-p-aminophenol nor acetaminophen as marketable as Tylenol.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Is it true that in some adverts aimed at the female market, "made-up" medical terms are used?

 

[Gloster]

Is it true that in some adverts aimed at the female market, "made-up" medical terms are used?

And the increasingly gullible and narcissistic male market.

 

[Speed Whiskers]

One of my favourite propriety names is an American name for the emergency contraceptive pill which is marketed as "Plan B".

Pfizer (the company that developed Viagra) has a bit of background information about the naming of drugs (written for an American audience):

Ever Wonder How Drugs Are Named? Read On | Pfizer

IBRANCE. Xeljanz. Sildenafil. Viagra.Most Americans have heard of at least one of those drug names. But where do those monikers come from? Is it scientific? Metaphorical? Both?

www.pfizer.com

Naming Medication: How Do Drugs Get Their Names?

Discover the story behind medication names with Pfizer. Learn the simple and interesting process of how drugs end up with their names.

www.pfizer.com

Ever Wonder How Drugs Are Named?​

IBRANCE. Xeljanz. Sildenafil. Viagra.

Most Americans have heard of at least one of those drug names. But where do those monikers come from? Is it scientific? Metaphorical? Both?

The drug-naming process is one that’s long and involved, whether a company is devising a generic name or a brand name (there are different processes for each). In fact, according to Michael Quinlan, who is senior manager, trademark development, within the Customer Analytics & Insights group with Pfizer, naming a drug can be a long and laborious process that begins before the drug, itself, has been approved by the FDA. “In most industries, you create a name for the product and as long as the trademark is considered available you can start using that name on your product,” says Quinlan. “But the drug name has to get reviewed and be considered safe before it’ll be approved to be used on that potential product.”

In some cases, Quinlan says it can take four years to go through the name selection and approval process. Still, he says, the exercise can be fun. “You’re getting to name the baby,” he says. And that name could be around for generations.

In this two-part series, we’ll look at how drugs get both their generic and brand names.

The early days​

It starts with a compound. Like anyone or anything, drugs need labels in order to distinguish them from one another. Marie-Claire Peakman, PhD., executive director of the Primary Pharmacology Group in Worldwide Research & Development with Pfizer explains that in the early days, chemists register a newly synthesized compound in a database, labeling it with PF—which stands for Pfizer—followed by 10 numbers (for example, PF-04965842-01). “When the chemists first make up compounds, they have to register them in the database as soon as they’re identified so that we can identify them and keep track of their performance in our studies,” says Peakman. If a compound shows enough promise to make it through early experiments and head towards clinical trials, two naming processes begin to devise a generic name and a brand name for the future drug.

How generic drugs get their generic names​

The first step in coming up with a name for a drug is selecting its generic, or non-proprietary name. The generic-naming process arose in the 1950s, says Quinlan, as a way of establishing a standard so that drugs had the same name everywhere. “Generic names came about because of the world growing smaller,” says Quinlan. People were traveling abroad more frequently, and it became clear that in other countries, their drugs might be known by another name than back home and would not be able to be identified. Today, two different organizations must approve the names of generic drugs— the United States Adopted Names (USAN) Council

and the World Health Organization (WHO) INN Programme
—so that regardless of where someone is located, patients and health care professionals will be able to safely communicate about medications.

Generic names are, in part, based on a formula. The suffix, or, as Quinlan calls it, “the family name,” imparts an important piece of information to health care professionals about how the substance works in the body. Take Viagra, for example. Its generic name is sildenafil. The suffix, “afil,” explains the way it works, says Quinlan, referring to its role as a PDE 5 inhibitor, meaning it helps control blood flow. “Afil” is also the suffix of other erectile dysfunction generics, such as tadalafil (Cialis), vardenafil (Levitra and Staxyn) and avanafil (Stendra).

The prefix gets a little more creative. “We look for syllables that obviously are different from other existing generic names and that are pleasant enough in their tonality or appearance so it doesn’t become overly complex to try to pronounce the generic name,” says Quinlan.

Celecoxib. Quinapril. Ziprasidone.

When devising those names, there are a number of rules that apply. Quinlan shared some of those rules:

• It must use two syllables in the prefix. This will help distinguish the drug from others, and allows for more variety.
• It must avoid certain letters. The generic drug name is created using the Roman alphabet, and the goal is to create a name that can be communicated globally. Because the letters Y, H, K, J, and W aren’t used in certain languages that use the Roman alphabet, they aren’t used in the creation of the prefix of the name.
• It can’t be considered marketing. Using the company’s name within the drug’s name must be avoided. Also, it’s important to stay away from superlatives or laudatory terms (best, new, fastest, strongest) that could be considered promotional.
• It avoids medical terminology. You don’t want to imply that a drug is intended only for one particular function, because in time, if it is also helpful for another purpose, the name could be reductive. “Say you were developing a treatment for oncology indications and you launched a product for those indications, but over time in further research you discovered it worked on inflammation and immunology indications. If you had something like “Onc-” in the beginning of your generic name that would be very limiting,” says Quinlan.

When the team has three to six names they like, it submits them to USAN Council, which is made up of representatives from the American Medical Association (AMA), United States Pharmacopeia (USP) and the American Pharmacists Association (APhA). Sometimes, it’s a success and one of the names is accepted. Other times, USAN declines to accept the names, and counter proposes a name of its choosing, which Pfizer can then choose to screen and accept.

When a name is accepted, USAN then submits it on behalf of Pfizer to the WHO, where a committee reviews it and decides whether to accept it or, again, counter propose a different name. When the WHO accepts a name, it’s published on a proposed International Nonproprietary Names (INN) list, and, over the course of four months, the public can come forward and object to the name. If no one objects, it publishes to a recommended INN list and Pfizer can start referring to the drug by the nonproprietary name, rather than by code.

The Process of Naming Pharmaceutical Drugs​

Micronase. Daypro. Tessalon. Each of those names began on a list of hundreds of options, and the process to approve that name may have begun years prior to even the drug’s approval.

The first part of this two-part series on how drugs are named explored the process for coming up with the generic name for a medication. This article explores how drugs get their brand name.

Coming up with a safe brand name

Unlike generic names, brand names aren’t tied to particular suffixes, and that allows for more creativity, says Michael Quinlan, who is senior manager, trademark development, within the customer analytics and insights group with Pfizer. Plus, he adds, there’s a certain cache that comes with creating a drug’s brand name. Think about it. When you go to the store to purchase a pain reliever, do you tell yourself that you’re headed out to pick up some ibuprofen, or do you think about it by its brand name, Advil?

“Pharmaceutical companies tend to promote by their brand name because that’s always going to be our name" says Quinlan. "Once the patent expires and generic products can be introduced into the marketplace they use the generic name, whereas our brand name is only able to be used by us.”

The names are meant to be representative of the drug in some way. “They can range from abstract ideas, tonality, strong sound or gentle sound. It can be imagery. You hear a word and it brings something positive to mind, or a nice association that isn’t a claim,” says Quinlan. He shares the example of Lyrica, which is used to treat nerve and muscle pain and calls to mind lyrics or music. Viagra, used to treat erectile dysfunction, elicits vitality and vigor. IBRANCE, a breast cancer treatment summons inspiration, embrace, vibrancy.

Similar to developing the generic name for medications, there are a number of rules that apply to developing the brand name for medications. For starters, the name can’t make an overt claim about what it does, nor can it be promotional. It should avoid any use of a generic name stems (like “afil”), because that could be confusing.

Knowing that, the process works like this: A team at Pfizer will often work with an outside agency to come up with a potential list of about 200 names, and that list will need to be dramatically reduced. In the end, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will review only one proposed name at a time, and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will review only two.

“To get there is a lot of effort,” says Quinlan. “Think of it as a funnel, or like sand through the hour glass: that one grain that makes it through the bottom is what we hope is its global brand name, to be used in as many countries as possible.”

Culling the list

The narrowing-down process begins with an online survey, which is circulated to key team members for that product within Pfizer and reduces the list of 200-plus names down to about 100 of the more preferred names. Then, a team whittles that list down further through a process of elimination that includes:

Trademark screening and clearance. A team of attorneys scrutinizes each name to make sure that name is truly unique. “All companies developing drug brands have to be diligent that it’s not getting too close to other companies brand names, or generic names for that matter,” says Quinlan.

Linguistic checks. Does the drug name translate ok? The goal is to have a product that is appealing on a global scale, so it’s important to make sure it sounds and reads okay, regardless of the language or dialect. “We want to make sure the brand name is checked in major world languages to make sure the name in its entirety does not mean or imply a word or phrase that would be inappropriate or embarrassing,” says Quinlan.

Safety checks for interpretation during the prescription process. Safety is the major focus in naming drugs. If one medication name is confused with another, the mistake could have serious consequences. To avoid any confusion, the team at Pfizer works to ensure that proposed names do not look or sound like another that when coupled with an analysis of similar prescribing characteristics (dose strength, frequency, route of administration etc.) could produce a medication dispensing error. They’ll even do prescription simulation interpretation tests with verbal orders, computer entry orders and with handwriting to see if the name could be confused with another when written in a doctor’s potentially messy script. When drugs have an unexpected letter—such as the Q in Pristiq or the X in Xeljanz—it may have been chosen to make the name look more distinguishable.

Market research. The team will survey others, including health care professionals, to gauge how they respond to the different names, inquiring about areas such as safety as well as general likeability of the way the word looks, sounds and how memorable it is.

The final steps

All of those steps shorten the list to a final handful of just around three names. The team then selects the favorite name to submit to the FDA and their favorite two names to submit to EMA. At long last, they wait to find out if the name is approved.

While two to three years seems like a long time for a drug brand name to be developed, screened and ultimately accepted, Quinlan says it’s an important process and it’s designed with the patient in mind.

“We have this additional hurdle that no other industry really has,” says Quinlan, referring to the drug brand naming process requiring not only trademark clearance for a new name, but also health authority approval. But those steps are absolutely needed to ensure that every medication name is as distinct as it can be. “Our goal is to prevent confusion,” he says. “We want to make sure that they’re safe.”

 

[66701GBRF]

The prefix "meta" also comes from the Ancient Greek with meanings such as after or before.

I knew that being in the Greek and Latin Classics Stream at St Bede's College, Manchester from the Autumn term in 1956 until the Upper Sixth would eventually have some use...

You’ve quoted “meta” as the prefix, but that isn’t what is written.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

You’ve quoted “meta” as the prefix, but that isn’t what is written.

Just one of my usual "behind the stage curtain" ideas, as my Greek teacher was fond of saying...

 

[contrex]

Disclosure: married to a pharmacy technician. The endings are often informative -mab means monoclonal antibody, -zumab is a humanized antibody, -vir is an antivirus preparation. I take omeprazole; -prazole means it's a proton-pump inhibitor.

Drug nomenclature - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jfollows]

Cyanocobalamin sounds a lot scarier than Vitamin B12, which I’m now on. It just means there’s a C-N triple bond, I think, attached to Cobalt. It’s not toxic.

 

[zero]

Cyanocobalamin sounds a lot scarier than Vitamin B12, which I’m now on. It just means there’s a C-N triple bond, I think, attached to Cobalt. It’s not toxic.

Everything is toxic at a particular dose

 

[najaB]

Everything is toxic at a particular dose

Indeed, one two word phrase supports this: oxygen toxicity.

 

[Speed Whiskers]

One of my range of nine assorted medications is called Apixiban...which my ten year old grand-daughter with a good sense of humour calls "Big Pixies Bum"....

A relative of mine referred to something they called "Anti-booze". It took me a while to realise that they meant disulfiram (a deterrent from drinking alcohol as it produces extremely unpleasant physical reactions with alcohol) which is marketed as "Antabuse".

 

[Gloster]

A relative of mine referred to something they called "Anti-booze". It took me a while to realise that they meant disulfiram (a deterrent from drinking alcohol as it produces extremely unpleasant physical reactions with alcohol) which is marketed as "Antabuse".

Presumably there is also a seemingly indistinguishable drug called Decabuse.

 

[najaB]

Presumably there is also a seemingly indistinguishable drug called Decabuse.

Your coat, sir.