How Do Drugs Get Their Names?
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- Опубліковано 15 лип 2024
- Who names drugs? Why all the funny names? A number of months ago, we did an episode on how a drug comes to market with the help of out HCT intern, pharmD student Rachel Hoffman. She also helped us out with our episode on Flibanserin.
We get a lot of questions from you about drugs. What's the difference between a generic and name brand drug? How do people feel about them? What's the difference with biologics? With her help, we're going to tackle those in the upcoming weeks.
Let's start at the beginning. What's in a name? That which we call a drug. By any other name would be so . . . effective? Brand name and generic drugs: are there any differences? Who regulates them? And what's with all the names anyway? That's the topic of today's HealthCare Triage.
Those of you who want to read more can go here: theincidentaleconomist.com/wor...
John Green -- Executive Producer
Stan Muller -- Director, Producer
Aaron Carroll -- Writer
Mark Olsen -- Graphics
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When he said "I can't even think of 20 friends that all have different names," I took it as a challenge.
This video was fascinating. I was amazed that there have only been 1450 drugs approved (I would have thought it'd be in the tens of thousands). Anyway, HCT is doing some amazing work lately. Thank you, Dr. Carroll and crew!
As a former pharm tech I despise brand names- I think all companies with "brand" rights should have to use the generic name with an asterisk. It's the same damn thing. Brand names are so arbitrary and usually unrelated to the generic names, which at least conform to some general rules. The top 150 drug brand names was the biggest waste of space I have ever commited to memory.
I just got prescribed Niaspan (vitamin B3) but it sounds a lot like Diazepam (Valium) - that's a pretty big difference.
Looks like a great miniseries. Look forward to the rest of the videos on drugs.
+Nolan Thiessen Exactly my thought too :3
First, if you want extra advice, you are welcome to contact me. I'm easily Googled. My name is Linnea Boyev, MD PhD and I currently teach Pharmacology to pre-pharm, pre-med and nursing students. And I'm semi-retired so I have a lot of free time. Just throwing that out there.
Second, something you didn't mention is how the naming conventions help healthcare workers. For instance, almost all drugs that end with -OLOL are beta-blockers, drugs that slow heart rate (among other things). Therefore, if any new drug comes out, and it's called whateverolol, healthcare workers immediately recognize the drug class and major indications and contraindications for that class. So it is far easier for healthcare providers to learn the ins and outs of the new drug, only having to learn the few differences between it and the older drugs, rather than having to try to commit to memory that a randomly named drug belongs to the beta-blocker drug class.
Third: The drug you mentioned first, that ends with -mab, is almost certainly a monoclonal antibody drug, as they all end with -mab. Monoclonal antibody drugs tend to have the most ridiculous names. Regardless, with thousands of drugs to keep track of, naming drugs to have the same generic suffix is a huge time-saver for healthcare professionals. And having an instant handle on a new drug also makes the world safer for patients.
Alas, the oldest drugs we still use were given generic names that were applied without a nice suffix rule like -olol or -mab or -pamil or -zosin ...etc. So those drugs are just miserable for students to have to memorize. Poor students.
+TaiChiKnees Thanks. It's nice to know the drug naming scheme helps healthcare workers. Before watching this video, I just assumed drug naming was a bit arbitrary and thus confusing, but now I can understand the reasons behind it.
+TaiChiKnees there's more in the monoclonal antibody name than just the -mab. Take ada-li-mu-mab. (ada) is given by the company. (li) indicates the drug has something to do with the immune system. (mu) indicate that the antibodies are derived from human sources, if I remember correctly. So the ridiculous names that are given to monoclonal antibodies are all derived from a somewhat standardized systematic naming scheme.
+bshay513 Great summary! Thanks!
This was a great video, I hope the rest of the series is just as good.
There's a brand name for 450mg doses of Bupropion, more commonly known as Wellbutrin. The brand name for the higher dose is different from the lower one. The name? Forfivo. Or Four Five Oh.
Lazy Name is Lazy.
+Øyvind L. And yet, both are prescribed off label for ADHD. The point of pointing out the name in this was to point out how dumb the name is.
Excellent video. Well researched and edited with good pace. Well done.
This was such a great episode!
When I was a senior dietetics major we had to present case studies for our medical nutrition therapy course. We had to list out all our patients' medications from their chart not just on the PowerPoint but we had to go through them all verbally. So if your patient was on 15 medications you had to practice and basically memorize how to pronounce them all. And then give the brand names after each one. :(
Throughout my pharmacology class and working in the hospital and a doctor’s office, I like to think I have learned quite a bit about medications and their names for my age. Never in any of my classes or experiences though have I learned the reasons why each drug has its specific name and the process the names themselves must go through as well. I knew that drugs have their chemical name, brand name, and generic names, but I guess I never thought too in depth as to why? As much as I hated learning the spelling and annunciation of many drugs in my pharmacology class it makes me feel a little better knowing that the reason drugs have such crazy, complex names is for more safety reasoning. The FDA has approved 1,453 drugs in 2013 according to the video. Although that is a lot, I would have thought they have approved more since then.
Thanks for the informative video.
Interesting drug names.
My favorite brand name is Namenda (memantine), because it is an NMDA receptor antagonist. It's named after the receptor!
The sneaky brand namers with their pronounceable names. Do you know how much easier it is to say Lamictol than Lamotrogrine? A lot. That's how much. It's probably how they keep their brad afloat once the generic version comes out.
At first I was like, "A video just on drug names and it's 5 minutes? Why so long?" at 4:19 I was like "GODDAMN SON!!!!"
Best drug name I've come across is Firmagon (an LHRH antagonist) used in prostate cancer. Mechanism is testosterone suppression leading to impotence.
Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes: What is the generic name for viagra? Mycoxafailin
That is golden!
If you watched the video, that joke actually fails.
Woo Ondansetron was my favorite transformer!
Warfarin has a good background. ADDerall helps with ADD. Focalin helps focus. Selzentry is a cell entry inhibitor haha. A lot of fun naming out there.
As a paramedic, I can't stand the fact that drugs generally go by 2 names, their generic and brand name. For instance "Ondansatron" is what is written on the drug in our ambulance, but nobody calls it by that name, we all call it by its brand name, "Zofran". This is generally the case for all of the drugs on an ambulance.
Precisely, i was (still am) a fireman, and was on a ride along with our local EMS agency, before looking at going for EMT. Had an overdose (super bowl, six minutes left, was watching at the fire station since it had the nicer dayroom, I digress) so both the medics were working the patient, a handful of mutual aid medics were working the patient, and here I was being the gopher, things off the ambulance (three floors down) and getting things out of the bag.
Anyways to the point, after being asked for, and looking for the Narcan, I quickly located it as Naloxone. Something simple as that ought not to be a problem, Naloxone-Narcan-Narcan-Naloxone, straight forward, but having two if not several (presumably not similar) names for the same drug, when referred to by one, and labeled by the other, may become an issue at the ungodly hours, stress, and workload of many agencies.
At the pharmacy where I used to work, a couple of the techs and I had a joke about one of the birth controls we carried being a superhero, mostly because it didn't have a girly sounding name like Jolessa or Yasmin. She was Fem-Con! Saving the world from too many babies!
I had never heard of the US name for paracetamol before. In Sweden, paracetamol is the only name used. Also, we do often "swedenize" the spelling for different drug names - diclofenac is diklofenak for example, probably for pronunciation purposes, and making it easier to realise the drug's compounds.
+Camilla Nilsson I'd heard it before, but only on other HCT episodes I think. Acetaminophen is just as alien a name to us Brits as it is to you Swedes (paracetamol all the way baby).
+Alphathon as an American, what are both of those big aliens words? DADDY HELP!
+Camilla Nilsson Tell me about it! I'm British and I was really confused as to what "Tylenol" was when I first heard about it on this show. Then it became clear that it was a brand name for "Acetomenophin" but I still had no idea what that was. We only say Paracetamol too, and I don't think we even have any brand names for it.
+JoneseyBanana You don't? In Sweden, the brand name for it is Alvedon.
+JoneseyBanana same in central europe - all the packaging just uses the "paracetamolum" as the generic name. That being said, there is one brand name "APAP" on the market
Gods work
Aciphex is the one that always gets me. I have to wonder if anyone in charge of naming it ever said it out loud in front of people who both had a sense of humor and were in a position that would allow them to laugh at the person who said it.
***** Yes. I get the way they named it. But it's like no one said it out loud. Even back in the early 00s when it was approved, people were using "(blank) FX", as in "Lash FX, the new amazing mascara for your lashes!". Aciphex just _sounds_ like "Ass FX, the new amazing drug for your gastrointestinal health!" Not thought out.
Hello Dr Carroll,
Please Have a talk on ill effects of Masturbation. I have seen blogs circulating in the web that it is link with back pains, mental capacity reduction, etc... Are all of these have bases??
Thank you Very Much...
As a student pharmacist an really looking foward to this series, there's so much that can be talked about with drugs and the miss information. Am pretty sure the comments will go crazy in the next one for sure, very hard to convince people generics and brand names are the same.
Okay but seriously, what is that stock footage at 2:07? "I dunno, stand over by the distiller and jiggle some Hawaiian Punch. SCIENCE!"
The process of moving a word between languages that use different alphabets is not 'translation' as you said near the end of the video, but 'transliteration' For example there are several different schemes from transliterating Chinese which is why you have Peking/Beijing/Pekin for the same city.
Easy, Peking is Lunch, Beijing is where the airport is, and pekin is illegal.
You know ten Johns or Jons (or a combination of both)? I have a brother-in-law named John and another named Jon (just Jon, not short for Jonathan).
The scientist at 2:08 has the shakiest hand
there are some cbemicals that you have to pour like that, it a technique
Its pronounced para-see-tamol in the UK and Ireland
My name is John... :c
I usually love (LOVE!) HCT, but I think this one was more than a little dull. There's only so many times you can hear "non-proprietary" in a 5-minute period before you become more glazed than a box of doughnut holes.
Or just use Phuquetol.
Is next weeks episode just going to be the word No? With a side note of maybe there is come caffeine in it.
Paging Dr Linnaeus? Sure they're lots of folks named Ian but I don't think that's relevant to this naming problem. Generically they're all homo sapiens. It's not like we need to address each dose of a drug by a different name. Other sources have suggested that companies may be seeking competitive advantage by making generic names difficult to use. Is that plausible?
1st? yay! ;)
There shouldn't be a 'brand name' for drugs! The so called generic name and the drug's chemical designation should be it. If a company wants to sell me acetaminophen just call it "Acetaminophen by [insert pharmaceutical company's name here]" and be done with it! I mean I could buy a bag of potato chips by Utz or Frito Lays and they don't call them different things is just potato chips by which ever company! Drugs are more critical than my example and yet they have to call their version that may have a little bit more active ingredient(s) than the generic something catchy just because they want profits maximized!!!
+sion8 1. poor example - I doubt you've ever seen chips that said "potato chips by xxxx". You just associate the large company names printed on the packet with potato chips through brand recall. You COULD do the same for drugs if you ate them as much (which I hope you don't). 2. While the generic name indicates the active ingredient, due to proprietary control, different companies offer different formulations of the drug (that is, all the other ingredients of the tablet etc) which aren't generally designed to, but may affect, the way the drug works (for eg, slowing its metabolism in the gut) or may make it possible to be used through another form of administration (something designed to be stable in your pH 4-5 gut might not be appropriate for an eye-dropper - a pair of examples of acetaminophen).
A more accurate example for your purpose would be to call all varieties of chips just "chips by xxxx", whether they are potato-based, corn-based, wheat-based etc etc let alone having different flavours within these categories. Drug companies would rather have a short catchy name based on its mechanism of action etc, which doctors and pharmacists can use to immediately recognise it.
Though, agreed acetaminophen itself gets far too many names. This is due to its long history (19th century, prior to when common naming conventions started) and its prevalence of use (its been profitable for many companies to compete to provide the same drug - which is generally a rarity but results in more names for the same thing).
some compnies already do that, apotex is one of then they just use apotex and then the generic name e.g. apo-rosuvastatin
Erasmus.K TrackFiend
I guess that's better than brand new names that are just crazy and comic at times.
FlashMeterRed
Pringles is the only brand that I can think of that does do that and that's because they technically don't make potato chips as they don't use potatoes in their natural form to make their chips they process them in some way I just can't remember the details right now. However most potato chip bags don't have made up names on them unless its about the flavors which some companies like doritos (which isn't potato chips) have some interesting names for some of their flavors.
But, I stand with what I said. Some drugs have similar active ingredients that if different doctors prescribe the same patient at times has lead to over dozes mostly because one or both of the doctors don't know all the medicines some of their patients are taking either because the patient doesn't inform them about it or clerical error on that patient's record.
Well take Orange juice, or Vegetable soup. They both, on the can under Florida’s Natural or Amy’s (respectively) say Orange Juice and vegetable soup. Only when (or if) you care to look, you can get the legally required to be posted ingredients. If you are at the pharmacy for scurvy, they’ll prescribe you “400ml Orange Juice p.o bid”. Exactly which orange juice isn’t germane in the circumstances, unless specifically requested to take orange juice with extra calcium, or with medium pulp, which will be blatantly obvious in the labeling. Then again, prescription bottles are awfully tiny.
IUPAC > all.
Asking someone if they want some 2-(4-(2-Methylpropyl)phenyl)propanoic acid to help get rid of that headache, so that I can see the perplexed look on their face is way too funny to me to be mentally healthy. Unhelpfully complicated nomenclature made just to make it look like I am not an idiot in order to preserve my fragile ego and to repeatedly try to convince myself that I am not something I clearly am, induced via worrisome sadism and the desire to be esoteric and exclusive FTW! Now I know why philosophy and engineering majors talk the way they do. No offense to philosophy and engineering majors.
Industry/field jargon, preserving that banal sense of self-satisfaction the whole world over.
+evilcam Jargon is for people in a field of knowledge to communicate to others in the same field, as jargon contains precise definitions that are irrelevant to laypeople. You call that nomenclature "unhelpful", but it doesn't exist to be spoken from a doctor to a patient, it exists for a medical researcher to write to another medical researcher. This way, even if the second researcher is only learning about this drug for the first time, they could presumably figure out chemistry details and implications about the drug just from the name alone.
drugs are bad
no shit fuck tard I do drugs
+drew the elite gamer why all the sware
+Oscar I'Anson go eat shit