Every time you pick up a prescription drug, you will see its name printed on the label. For example, sildenafil, fluoxetine, alprazolam, or sertraline. But have you ever wondered how those names are developed? Choosing what you call a drug is a careful process that blends scientific naming protocols with marketing and regulatory considerations.
Prescription drugs undergo two naming processes for generic (non-only) versions, and two naming processes for branded (specific) names.
Common names are assigned by international organizations. The US adopted the Name (Usan) Councilthe Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the World Health Organization (WHO) ensure consistency, clarity and safety. Drug names follow strict guidelines that describe the active ingredient, chemical makeup, or therapeutic efficacy of the drug. Drugmakers place this part of the process, so the name is purely based on the chemical structure of the drug, allowing them to communicate about drugs that are free of chaos worldwide.
Suffix to a class of cholesterol-lowering medications – take drugs that end with statins.
“If the patient comes in and says, ‘Oh, I’m taking atorvastatin,’ you may not be familiar with that particular drug, but – from looking at the non-professional names that end with statins, you can quickly recognize this as a cholesterol-lowering drug.”
“It conveys that drug family very clearly,” she continued. “And I think it’s a very incredible success from our regulatory system.”
Biology, a drug derived from organic lifespan and tends to be injections or infusions, has a different system of instruction. Non-exclusive names are combined with standout but random suffixes to help distinguish between medication. This differentiation was developed to help prevent medication errors and identify products for side effects and other post-marketing monitoring.
General names are usually specified based on their chemical composition, but brand names are chosen to remember the drug, marketable, and legally differ from their competitors. This is why you are probably familiar with the catchy brand names for the drugs listed in the introduction (Viagra, Prozac, Xanax, Zoloft).
Developing a brand name for a drug is equally intense, but a little more interesting. The company develops names that are catchy, distinctive, and easy to pronounce. In the US, the name is submitted to the FDA to ensure that it does not resemble any existing drug names. If so, the name will be revised and less likely to cause spelling confusion or problems.
The process can take years, as “the FDA is a real stickman,” says David Holdford, a professor of drug therapy at Commonwealth University, Virginia. “They do very thorough analyses.” This includes A/B testing and other consumer research methods in various languages and cultures, evaluating how drug brand names resonate with consumers, and not having unintended negative meanings.
Naming a medication so that a medical professional can easily communicate the function of the medication that a patient is taking without consulting the Merck Manual is a sign of success in branding. However, sometimes it becomes a trademark issue for the company itself, as its own name can become ubiquitous. “Powering is underway.” Think Kleenex and tissues or acetaminophen and Tylenol. This could raise market share and brand awareness, but it could also spell out trouble for companies that want to maintain valuable trademarks.
Ppharmaceutical Companies will work with brand consulting agencies like Interbrand to develop names that are acceptable to the FDA, distinguish products in the market, and avoid making them ideally not too synonymous with generic drugs.
“It is the greatest benefit of pharmaceutical companies to find highly identifiable and recognizable names that can be sold in a strategic way that resonates with users so that drugs can capture demand and gain demand and market share,” says SoCal.
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