Inspired by this thread in MPSIMS.
Is there some body that clears names for drugs, or is it totally someone in marketing’s creation?
I mean, Viagra, Abilify, and Lipitor sound so cool… is this someone’s job, to come up with cool-sounding names for maltodextrin sulfate or whatever it’s really called? Because I could do that. Check out my drug names:
Quaniflex
Xernox
Rivorex
Culvia
Sparivor
See, it’s easy!
Simple answer, yes. There are marketing people at the pharmaceutical companies that come up with marketing names. These are very important, because these names are trademarks and are intended to communicate to doctors and patients in a way that creates sales for the company, and can be protected via the courts via trademark and patent protection. Companies spent lots of time and money to get these names right.
Si
The US FDA and others may also give input if brand names are too similar to existing names and may lead to prescribing/dispensing confusion. One example of this is Allergan’s drug Posurdex, which was considered by the FDA to be too similar to Precedex, so the name was changed to Ozurdex.
This one could also be a car. A Toyota maybe.
They spend millions of dollars coming up with those drug names, names that subtly imply what it does. Viagra makes you think of Niagra falls… images of huge flowing gushing big spraying… etc. Qualuudes were supposedly a combination of the words “quiet interlude” which speaks for itself. Halcion is another good example. Back in the day, they didn’t do it this way, and drugs like 'premarin" were named for “pregnant mare’s urine” which is from what it was derived. But these days, it’s 100% marketing, and they spend a fortune on it. Focus groups, etc. And then we complain about the extremely cost of medicine and the manufacturers act all indignant about how much drug development costs. Just call the next erectile dysfunction pill “boner pill 3.0” and save ten million in marketing costs.
I read something about this process years ago. One thing that stuck out was how difficult it was to come up with a name that hadn’t already been used. Think about it - if a failed brand of Hungarian toothpaste used the name you just came up with, you’re going to get into trouble if you use it. Huge amounts of research go into it.
The generic name is still created in a similar way: -mab is the suffix for drugs created from monoclonal antibodies. Other generics are named by modifying the name of the first drug in that class. Statins, cholesterol drugs, are all named after mevastatin, the first drug in the class. (I tried to dig up the origin of the name of mevastatin, but those papers are decades old and not readily available.) And these generic naming conventions are overseen by a body called the Adopted Names Council. Other suffixes, prefixes, syllables stuck in the middle, give some hint about the structure or function of a compound. It’s not very precise, but it’s the sort of thing that allows researchers to recognize new compounds as related to older, well-known compounds.
FDA Guidelines for naming a drug.
Don’t call it mycoxafloppin.
Lancia made a Fulvia…
That’s the antidote you take after a 4-hour erection.
It is rumored that Pfizer is developing a drug combining Viagra with ginko boloba to improve both memory and sexual function. The name? Ginko-Viagra. To help you remember what the fuck you were doing.
According to Martial, the refrain of Fulvia-- Marc Antony’s wife before he met Elizabeth Taylor-- was
‘Either fuck or let’s fight,’ she says.”
Martial responds:
“Doesn’t she know
my prick is dearer to me than life itself? Let the trumpets blare!”
So that’s a consideration.
Good thing they didn’t actually ask people from Da Falls what they thought of when they thought of that word. “Is it a pill to fight urban decay?”