It's more like 3-(4-isobutylphenyl) propionic acid. And yeah, no one calls it that, not even organic chemists. And ibuprofen is one of the simplest drugs.
@@MrDanielDoan as an educational video talking about the world, the paracetamol and acetaminophen generics names should definitely have been addressed
All the doctors I've been to exclusively used the generic names, never the brand names. Cleared up a lot of potential confusion, especially when americans on the internet always use brand names that don't exist where I live I wish cooking ingredients also had global generic names, would make internet recipes easier to follow
This becomes extra fun in the US when insurance decides (literally at random, and they have to give no notice) to stop covering the generic, this and that brand name, but not THIS brand name. And then you go in to get your prescription renewed a year later and suddenly only that generic name is covered, this brand name maybe be half covered, but not THOSE names anymore. Oh, but this pharmacy doesn’t carry that specific one? Oh well. Oh, but THIS pharmacy only has that dosage? Sorry, we don’t cover that. I wish I was making this up but I *can* get that absurd
This is backwards in my area. I literally use the generic name to avoid confusion (and I neither know the many different brands nor do I care) but the doctors always say the brand name back to me immediately afterward, as if they were "correcting" it in there heads
As a doctor (an old one) I remember when drug companies would ask doctors about potential names somewhat based on how easy it would be to write it on a prescription pad - and would it be easily confused/misread as some medicine already existing.
I'm American and a type 1 diabetic and went to japan last summer having forgotten my insulin. It was indeed a frigging nightmare and I was up for almost 56 hours straight.
As someone in the medical field, I totally appreciate this video! When I have to ask my patients what medications they are on and they can’t pronounce them properly or at all, it causes much confusion from all fronts. You’d be surprised how many patients don’t know WHY they take the medications they do. 🤦🏻♀️
In Turkey we may be prescribed with a brand name, but the pharmacists might give another equivalent and it’s the case often, when pharmacists may not have the original on hand. And a name from us. There’s a tadalafil (original brand Cialis) by a local company with the brand name: “Lifta”. True story.
Omg thats a beautiful brand name for tadalafil, how much does it cost in Turkey? Here in NZ even the generic brand is outrageously priced I've just looked and for Sandoz tadalafil the cost is $6.49 NZD per 10mg tablet
in the US there is no requirement to fill brand name medications if the prescription states a brand name. there are actually more steps to take if you want a brand name med filled, typically writing in “DAW” or “dispense as written” on the rx itself. branded meds are expensive and often require prior authorization from the patient’s insurance before insurance will even pay. as a medical office manager it ultimately wastes a lot of time for almost every part of my staff (doctors, MAs, front desk even) to get a name-brand med filled over a generic
the wildest names in my opinion are monoclonal antobodies names (ending in -mab): omalizumab, cetiximab, bevacizumab, rituximab, panitumomab, ipilimumab, alemtuzumab and so on
7:02 this is also why in US medical charting sometimes we use what’s called “tall man lettering” to make sure the inputting/ picking out the wrong meds doesn’t happen. For instance, it would be very bad to mix up diazePAM (a sedative/ psych med) with diltiaZEM (a blood pressure med).
When playing Scrabble, I jokingly put down letters to form the word "PANIX" and said it was a drug for panic attacks. Everyone laughed, and I removed the tiles.
I used to work at a company that produced medical software, so I knew a bit about this. On top of what you mentioned, there’s also tall man/short man notation, which emphasizes parts of medicine names to better differentiate them.
You should do a video on IUPAC. It could go hand in hand with medicine as well. Like how "Tylenol" is derived from the IUPAC name for its active ingredient para-aceTYLaminophENOL.
You can also see paracetamol, the generic name in Europe, PARa-ACETylAMinophenOL. (I know he said there is one generic name. For really old drugs there can be regional names that were established before these rules.)
Love this video . long overdue .As a nurse, I gotta laugh at the "rule" about med names not sounding alike...we get a new list of " similar name" meds every year to watch for. I'm laughing as well at the idea of patients remembering the correct names of their drugs, which so often doesn't happen. For example, my mother insists on calling her metoprolol blood pressure med metropol...which is the name of a nightclub that closed many years ago. Even doctors order the same med by different names at different times.
@@samuelspicer9647 personally speaking I tried to find names that were somehow relevant to the product, by using synonyms, Greek and Latin roots, and so on, and then tried to make them euphonious and/or healthy sounding.
The pharmacy in my small town told me they struggled to keep my one kind of medicine in stock. So, they told me that sometimes my tablets would be peach-coloured and other times they'd be white (even though, really, it's pretty much the same thing).
As one with a degree in chemistry, I used to puzzle over what the pharmaceutical industry was up to. I learned to use the IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) nomenclature system, which systematically describes the entire molecular structure.
A few years back I had just about convinced myself that, when drug companies developed new medicines, they deliberately made the generic names as bizarre and unpronounceable as possible so people would just give up and ask for their brand names instead. Then I realized those brand names tend to be bizarre and unpronounceable too! Thanks for detailing the rules and pressures that actually lead to those names. Very interesting!
It would be cool to have a video about the differences between the drug names in the US vs the UK. Like acetaminophen vs paracetamol (I think that's the same med). I also think it's interesting that in America, we can get a bottle of 500 tablets of 500mg acetaminophen, but in the UK there are much smaller quantities allowed.
I think it's the packaging issue. In most European and Asian countries tablets/pills come in strips. So the vendor would sell an entire strip or a part of it. But in America's I've observed most pills come in bottles. I'm not an American and I'm speaking from the shows I've watched. But I assume once u dispense a few pills from bottle, because of contact with moisture and air the rest of the pills start their onset of decay early. So it is better to give the entire bottle of pills to the patient. Also costs so damn higher.
It's definitely to do with preventing accidental or deliberate overdose. You can only buy two packs of paracetamol in the UK at a time (32 500mg tablets). It would be illegal to sell a bottle with 100 tablets in, so they dont make them here. And im thinking the packaging is perhaps a safety feature to prevent people/kids accidentally taking too many. You have to individually pop every tablet out of the strip, rather than just pouring a whole load of them into your hand in one go.
@@orangew3988 While that is true, it should be noted that even in the US you would have to swallow an uncomfortable amount of pills to be at risk of overdosing on most medications. The acetomenophen 300mg tablets I have are pretty freaking huge, but most of it is filler, and you would need quite a lot of pills taken at once to overdose immediately. The risk is more about doubledosing or overdosing slightly over a long period of time (apparently acetomenophin fucks with your kidneys) We do also get pills in boxes on strips though, my migraine medication comes like that.
Just wait until you find out that all the drugs that end in -azole do very different things: fluconazole (an anti fungal), omeprazole (reduces gastric acid secretion), metronidazole (an antibiotic), aripiprazole (an antipsychotic), carbimazole (reduced thyroid activity)
I'd like to mention a medication that I take!! I take a stimulant called Azstarys (az-STAR-iss), which is much easier to pronounce than the generic names of serdexmethylphenidate and dexmethylphenidate. It's a relatively new medication, as im pretty sure the FDA only approved it in 2021.
The only time I use a branded name is when there is currently no generic version of a medication. For example, I take Jardiance (empagliflozin), which will only be available from its current manufacturer until late February, 2025. But I quit calling Prilosec (omeprazole) by its brand name as soon as it became available as a generic here in the US. It's still sold as Prilosec - often right next to its store-brand generic equivalent, which usually costs 20-30% less!
A lot of medications have a molecular or chemical name called IUPAC ID's which follow strict rules to of chemistry to name a substance. For example aspirin is 2-Acetoxybenzoic acid, it is 2 because the functional group is on the second carbon, from that name you can draw out the molecule. The IUPAC ID is used by toxicologists, some pharmacists and most definitely the manufacturers.
In Germany a med has kinda two names either. One brand name and the name of the active pharmaceutical ingredient. This latter name is important for hospitals, because you might get the med "Aspirin", but it has the active pharmaceutical ingredient "acetylsalicylic acid". In the hospital, you may get another med with the same active pharmaceutical ingredient.
As an aussie pharmacist i can say that you got most of this right, however you are unfortunately incorrect that “no matter who makes it they still call it viagra” only Pfizer is allowed to call it viagra. Also in australia we definitely do not have to supply the brand if one is indicated on the prescription and in fact the doctors are no longer supposed to suggest a brand because of the misconception that generics are somehow different or inferior quality which simply isn’t the case. I literally got into pharmacy because i like saying the long names some of my favourites are phenoxymethylpenicillin, hydroxychloroquine, and hydrochlorothiazide. Also fun fact tadalafil (original brand name Cialis) is in the same family as Sildenafil so you know what it does and it was named as such because… ta dah!!!!
I'm a fan of penicillin V too (funny, when I text that word, I go with penicillin V, but when I'm in a conversation, I go with phenoxymethylpenicillin)
@@decgal81 pharmacies are usually required to fill the generic drug unless the doctor specifically writes or checks a box that says substitution isn't allowed, or the patient specifically requests the brand name.
@@amylaneioeven then, pharmacists know which types of medications are and aren’t okay to substitute. It’s normally medications which need to be dosed very precisely, like warfarin, is where they dispense the same brand name as what the patient is already taking.
Then again, the IUPAC names are just as much, if not more of nightmares to deal with :/ And that's why I chose to study materials science instead of biochemistry
The main issue with having a brand name and generic name is that people start to forget the generic name and refer to it by the brand name for which they are more famous in locally. Imagine if you ask for Panadol in America, where they call it Tylenol. This is an issue with non-medically trained staff who dont know that prescription can only use generic names. Handling this issue is my daily bread. 🍞
In Belgium pharmacists are encouraged (if not required) to propose a generic version of a drug when available (for example "paracetamol" instead of "Dafalgan(R)"
One I find interesting is Aspirin (Acetyl Salicylic Acid), originally developed in 1897 by the German company Bayer as a refined and more effective variant of Salicylic Acid, the Trade name of Aspirin was coined. This took homage from the most abundant source of Salicylic Acid (In Europe and the Americas) coming from willow bark (or Aspar in Latin). However after Germany lost the Great War/WWI in 1918, several of its companies lost assets and trademarks; with Bayer losing the copyright to Aspirin. This then allowed the USA to adopt the name of Aspirin as the "generic" name and its distribution throughout the West followed suit in calling it Aspirin, however in Germany they honoured the original trademark and within the borders of Germany only Bayer is allowed to produce Aspirin, and any non-Bayer "Aspirin" must be sold as Acetyl Salicylic Acid (or ASA)
I have to add one important thing about branded vs generic medicine. In some, not all cases, the two are made with a different synthesis method and because of this some have different bioavailability. That is more or less how much is absorbed and utilized.
One peculiar case where one medication has two different generic names is paracetamol (every other country I've lived in; popular brand Panadol) aka acetaminophen (USA; popular brand Tylenol). Anybody know why?
I mean, I'll sometimes say Advil or Motrin even if I mean ibuprofen generically, or Tylenol if I mean acetaminophen (paracetamol...for some reason it's got different generic names on different sides of the pond).
Pharmacists are trained to recommend a different product with the same active substance if they can't provide the exact product requested. Aspirin was registered as a trademark in 1899 by Bayer and is still a trademark exclusive to Bayer in a number of countries, whereas in others it has become a generic name for acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) or in German speaking countries acetylsalicylsäure (ASS). This effect is known as "generic trademark" and can also be encountered in other fields: jell-o, kleenex, tempo, velcro, nylon ... (By the way Heroin also started as a trademark by Bayer, falsely advertised as being non-addictive around 1900, as a pain killer and cough suppressant. That changed in the 1910s when it became a controlled substance, curiously there's still limited scope medical application but that's overshadowed by the use as an addictive illegal drug.)
Another benefit of generic names is that it's a broadly international standard in pharmacology and doctoring. Meaning you can go to any pharmacy in most countries around the world and get your prescription even if the local brand name is different.
Yeah, it's like Methamphetamine used to be sold as Pervitin (OTC medication), and to this day, the name is still used (in certain countries) as the name for this substance. Sometimes, people just stick to the brand name
One reason why people might want the brand name is that the original brand name version usually has a smaller accuracy tolerance. That is to say, there is a smaller margin of error in how concentrated the active ingredient is. Sometimes that can make a noticeable difference.
It’s like Disney World vs amusement park. Brand and generic name. And the brand’s inventor has an incentive to make the generic name tough to spell or say, the doctor and everyone else is more likely to use their brand name and thus, more likely patients end up getting the brand.
Interesting relevant story I have is that I’m allergic to a medication and didn’t know the generic name for it for years and years. People had to search for the name I gave before they knew what it was.
A trademark is not a copyright. A brand name often is not just a trademarked synonym of a generic name. It may be the name of a formulation with multiple active ingredients, or of a particular dosage or mode of administration. For example, Ozempic and Rybelsus are both brand-name versions of semaglutide, but Ozempic is injected and Rybelsus is a pill.
Not only do multiple companies compete for consumer spending, but even the same store's generic compete with others -- I remember a few years back when the house brand had two forms of ibuprofen, one that looks like Advil, and another that looked like Motrin, one of the other major brands in the US. All four were identical in effect of course, as they all had the same active ingredient.
I know the generic names of all my meds, but not the brand names. It gets fun when half of my doctors call them by the brand names and half call them by the generic names.
In the US when it comes to ibuprofen, if it's a national name brand like Excedrin or Bayer or Advil, we'll refer to it by the the brand name or call it Motrin. We also have a brand called Motrin IB . Basically we use Ibuprofen and Motrin interchangeably since it's basically the same family., whether it's a name brand or store generic from CVS, Kroger, Walgreens, etc. same with Pain relievers with Acetaminophen, we refer to national name brand and store generic brand as Tylenol ( for our Uk friends paracetamol)
Sometimes there is a difference between generic and name brand due to the different filler ingredients being used in the tab/capsule.. or at least it’s that way in the US anyways
At least here in the US we have what's called Dispense as Written (DAW) codes on the scripts. The Doctor could write the brand name on the prescription but unless specified with the DAW as needing to be the brand medication, it will likely be switched to generic.
I take a prescribed generic medication whose name is 'furosemide'. Both my GP and my pharmacist always refer to it as 'Lasix', its brand name. I also take guaifenesin, known to most people as 'Mucinex' regardless of who makes it.
It might have been nice to have a short bit in here about how the brand name drugs can have the same ACTIVE ingredient, but they can be in differing amounts AND have different fillers.
Mabs are monoclonal antibodies (MAB), and the -tibs and -nibs are tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Many cancer drugs and immunosuppressants belong to these classes.
That’s good and all, but if I’m presented with the generic name, how do I tell whether or not it’s for psoriasis, crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, eczema, asthma, cancer, leukemia, or any other number of medical conditions?
I think it's insane how I need to EITHER have generic *or* brand name for my methylphenidate since it's controlled.. If I'm perscribed brand name, I can't get generic, but if I'm perscribed generic, I can't get brand name. It sucks when my insurance tandomly switches which option is covered vs which one isn't...
In the Philippines, we have a law that medicines should have it's generic name the same font size as its brand name. It's to increase the trust from the general public to buy cheaper generic brands and to believe they're the same as branded medicine The same law also encourages celebrities to endorse "generic pharmacies" whose main sell purpose is to sell generic brands
When I read the title, as a med student I said "finally someone asked that question", I have to check the Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary every time I see a word I understand but can't even think of pronouncing, it's funny but it bothers me often when I try to explain something related to a disease treatment and I just happen to forget how something was said, or I pronounce it differently Like metoprolol, since atenolol is stressed on the antepenultimate syllable, I figured it'd be the same for metoprolol, and according to the Merriam-Webster's, that's true, but it's also valid to say me-to-PRO-lol (according to Collins Dictionary), I end up pronouncing that word whatever I feel like at the moment LOL
I had a large disagreement with a friend over a brand name and how in the US it's behind the counter. They disagreed because the brand name meant it had the generic name in it and it didn't but the brand recognition was so strong they wouldn't believe me. Pseudoephedrine, Sudafed and Sudafed-PE.
There are some meds where they have the same generic name, but need to be clarified as to which brand name's generic it is. In the US doctors write either the brand or generic name and have a Dispense As Written (DAW) code to clarify if brand is medically necessary or not. It can make a difference for some meds and for some patients. Synthroid (levothyroxine) is a common one.
I’ve noticed that generic names are sometimes made significantly longer than the brand names and I wonder if that's not on purpose to make people want to say the brand name more. Next they can try something like: Brand: Antiver Generic: Notantiver
At the very start where you name random names from the NHS website I think it's a little confusing to mix generic names (hydrocortisone) with brand names (Paxlovid etc.). Especially because, though you didn't explain it in the video, many generic names are actually just chemical names (often shortened) following IUPAC nomenclature, which deserves its own video I think. It's actually quite a neat little system, and very logical too!
I have a question. Why are some words in English just negations of the positive? I know that hate and love are nearly opposite, but why do we "dislike" something? Unwell and sick mean somewhat the same thing, but there are other examples when we can't express disdain without negating a positive expression. Any thoughts on this?
4:33 shouldn't it be "trademarked"? 6:07 organic chemistry things; all of those are fluoroquinolone antibiotics, i.e. based on a molecule called 4-quinolone (that name is a whole rabbithole in itself) with a fluorine and an oxomethyl group added to it, so they can also be called fluorooxomethylquinolone (wth numbers for the placements, and extra substituents). Shorten it like so: fl(uoro)ox(omethyl)quin(olone), change the "qu" for a "c" due to convention and pad with an "a" after the x, and voilá. 7:00 may be a new rule, because ofloxacin is a thing. 7:09 and yet they manage to become confusing when they take the easy way out: there's an antidepressand called "citalopram", which is a mixture of two enantiomers (same molecule, but mirror images), and when they found that one of them was more effective than the other (what's called the S-enantiomer), they turned it into a new medication they named "escitalopram" (from "S"-"citalopram"), which can be very confusing. 8:20 and then you cave cases where everyone is pushing for a different generic name, like with paracetamol/tylenol/acetaminophen (all of them different shortenings of the same word). 9:40 and even closer to "vigor".
I love names, I am here after all, but I learn the generic names of all the medications I take and also what they are called in different countries like paracetamol and acetaminophen
Your fictitious example of names that sound too much alike is actually pretty close to a real example we have in the US-- Anbesol, which is for toothaches, canker sores, and other mouth pain, and Anusol, which is for hemorrhoids. Those are both brand names, though, not generic. I was wondering why sometimes even the generic name for a medication can be different in different countries, such as acetaminophen and paracetamol?
Generic medication costs less because they don't have to pay for the research. Where medication comes from (including the not yet discovered cancer pill) is through research.
I have gone through the wonderful journey of chemotherapy, and some of the names of the drugs I was given were so weird. After being diagnosed with epilepsy in 2021 I am currently taking Levetiracetam and lomatrigine. Who comes up with this? 😂
What's the weirdest medicine name you've seen?
Viagra, or more specifically, it's generic name; micoxaphalin. 😉
Tylenol is a common name.
Hydroxyzine. One of the only words in English to have "XYZ" in it.
@@Illumisepoolist I think that is Panadol/Paracetamol
@@highpath4776 It's Acetaminophen in the US
That completely unhinged moment at the end had me rolling (figuratively, not literally, my wheelchair is nice and parked).
You forgot about the OTHER name, the chemical name. In the case of ibuprofen, isobutylphenylpropionic acid.
I can see how it was shortened
It's more like 3-(4-isobutylphenyl) propionic acid. And yeah, no one calls it that, not even organic chemists. And ibuprofen is one of the simplest drugs.
"Tylenol", "paracetamol" and "acetaminophen" (3 names for the same drug) _all_ derive from "N-acetyl-para-aminophenol", as one example.
if you watched the video, he explained this at 6:35
@@MrDanielDoan as an educational video talking about the world, the paracetamol and acetaminophen generics names should definitely have been addressed
Patrick: "I use viagra..."
Me: 🤭
Patrick "...as an example..."
I had the same "wait what?" moment! lol
I was briefly wondering how he would finish the sentence. 😁😁
All the doctors I've been to exclusively used the generic names, never the brand names. Cleared up a lot of potential confusion, especially when americans on the internet always use brand names that don't exist where I live
I wish cooking ingredients also had global generic names, would make internet recipes easier to follow
This becomes extra fun in the US when insurance decides (literally at random, and they have to give no notice) to stop covering the generic, this and that brand name, but not THIS brand name.
And then you go in to get your prescription renewed a year later and suddenly only that generic name is covered, this brand name maybe be half covered, but not THOSE names anymore. Oh, but this pharmacy doesn’t carry that specific one? Oh well. Oh, but THIS pharmacy only has that dosage? Sorry, we don’t cover that.
I wish I was making this up but I *can* get that absurd
Like it took some time for me to figure out atorvastatin was Lipitor...
Yup, same. Doctors I've been to use Generic names for meds.
Please do try to keep up, with US! Lol.
This is backwards in my area. I literally use the generic name to avoid confusion (and I neither know the many different brands nor do I care) but the doctors always say the brand name back to me immediately afterward, as if they were "correcting" it in there heads
As a doctor (an old one) I remember when drug companies would ask doctors about potential names somewhat based on how easy it would be to write it on a prescription pad - and would it be easily confused/misread as some medicine already existing.
I'm American and a type 1 diabetic and went to japan last summer having forgotten my insulin. It was indeed a frigging nightmare and I was up for almost 56 hours straight.
As someone in the medical field, I totally appreciate this video! When I have to ask my patients what medications they are on and they can’t pronounce them properly or at all, it causes much confusion from all fronts. You’d be surprised how many patients don’t know WHY they take the medications they do. 🤦🏻♀️
In Turkey we may be prescribed with a brand name, but the pharmacists might give another equivalent and it’s the case often, when pharmacists may not have the original on hand.
And a name from us. There’s a tadalafil (original brand Cialis) by a local company with the brand name: “Lifta”. True story.
Omg thats a beautiful brand name for tadalafil, how much does it cost in Turkey? Here in NZ even the generic brand is outrageously priced
I've just looked and for Sandoz tadalafil the cost is $6.49 NZD per 10mg tablet
@@Jakey4000 everything is expensive for us. Due to the he currency rates it may be a little more favorable for you
I think in US there is a box the Dr checks saying it's OK/not ok to replace with generic.
I work at a pharmacy and “give me all the fucking drugs “ is not that uncommon “ 😂
in the US there is no requirement to fill brand name medications if the prescription states a brand name. there are actually more steps to take if you want a brand name med filled, typically writing in “DAW” or “dispense as written” on the rx itself. branded meds are expensive and often require prior authorization from the patient’s insurance before insurance will even pay. as a medical office manager it ultimately wastes a lot of time for almost every part of my staff (doctors, MAs, front desk even) to get a name-brand med filled over a generic
the wildest names in my opinion are monoclonal antobodies names (ending in -mab): omalizumab, cetiximab, bevacizumab, rituximab, panitumomab, ipilimumab, alemtuzumab and so on
Pembrolizumab!
In addition, chimeric antibodies end in -ximab, with "xi" being a placeholder for "chi", from "chimeric"
They're beginning to sound like Aztec gods
I love the names of monoclonal antibodies, so does my managing pharmacist when I butcher the name Infront of a patient 😅
@@pedroff_1as a pharmacy tech I didn’t even know this. That’s wild!
7:02 this is also why in US medical charting sometimes we use what’s called “tall man lettering” to make sure the inputting/ picking out the wrong meds doesn’t happen.
For instance, it would be very bad to mix up diazePAM (a sedative/ psych med) with diltiaZEM (a blood pressure med).
When playing Scrabble, I jokingly put down letters to form the word "PANIX" and said it was a drug for panic attacks. Everyone laughed, and I removed the tiles.
I was *not* prepared for the "GIVE ME ALL THE 【bleep]ING DRUGS" at the end lol
I used to work at a company that produced medical software, so I knew a bit about this. On top of what you mentioned, there’s also tall man/short man notation, which emphasizes parts of medicine names to better differentiate them.
You should do a video on IUPAC. It could go hand in hand with medicine as well. Like how "Tylenol" is derived from the IUPAC name for its active ingredient para-aceTYLaminophENOL.
You can also see paracetamol, the generic name in Europe, PARa-ACETylAMinophenOL. (I know he said there is one generic name. For really old drugs there can be regional names that were established before these rules.)
True in the states the generic name is acetaminophen which is also derived from the IUPAC name.
It's almost like the drug version of how some Elizabeths are Liz while others are Beth. Different parts of the same longer name
Love this video . long overdue .As a nurse, I gotta laugh at the "rule" about med names not sounding alike...we get a new list of " similar name" meds every year to watch for. I'm laughing as well at the idea of patients remembering the correct names of their drugs, which so often doesn't happen. For example, my mother insists on calling her metoprolol blood pressure med metropol...which is the name of a nightclub that closed many years ago. Even doctors order the same med by different names at different times.
Yeah, I have to watch for metaprolol vs. metformin, cos I take both.
Here in Brazil, there's a new ADHD called Atentah (which means aware, but pronounced in a sassy way), it became a meme instantaneously
That tootholin/tootolin moment was genius.
Hope nobody takes the audio clip about "using" those little blue pills *as an example* out of context...
I used to work for a brand name creator. I was paid a certain amount for 100 suitable names they could choose from.
what goes into the process for creating the names? like is it random?
@@samuelspicer9647 personally speaking I tried to find names that were somehow relevant to the product, by using synonyms, Greek and Latin roots, and so on, and then tried to make them euphonious and/or healthy sounding.
The pharmacy in my small town told me they struggled to keep my one kind of medicine in stock. So, they told me that sometimes my tablets would be peach-coloured and other times they'd be white (even though, really, it's pretty much the same thing).
Thanks!
As one with a degree in chemistry, I used to puzzle over what the pharmaceutical industry was up to. I learned to use the IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) nomenclature system, which systematically describes the entire molecular structure.
Those tend to be extremely long and even more unwieldy than either generic or brand name.
A few years back I had just about convinced myself that, when drug companies developed new medicines, they deliberately made the generic names as bizarre and unpronounceable as possible so people would just give up and ask for their brand names instead. Then I realized those brand names tend to be bizarre and unpronounceable too! Thanks for detailing the rules and pressures that actually lead to those names. Very interesting!
11:31 100% people would shorten that to something like "xylozinax"
It would be cool to have a video about the differences between the drug names in the US vs the UK. Like acetaminophen vs paracetamol (I think that's the same med). I also think it's interesting that in America, we can get a bottle of 500 tablets of 500mg acetaminophen, but in the UK there are much smaller quantities allowed.
I think it's the packaging issue. In most European and Asian countries tablets/pills come in strips. So the vendor would sell an entire strip or a part of it. But in America's I've observed most pills come in bottles. I'm not an American and I'm speaking from the shows I've watched. But I assume once u dispense a few pills from bottle, because of contact with moisture and air the rest of the pills start their onset of decay early. So it is better to give the entire bottle of pills to the patient. Also costs so damn higher.
@@adityamohan1773 the price isn't bad for some drugs. I'm able to get 500 acetaminophen tablets (500mg each) for about 8 usd.
It's definitely to do with preventing accidental or deliberate overdose. You can only buy two packs of paracetamol in the UK at a time (32 500mg tablets). It would be illegal to sell a bottle with 100 tablets in, so they dont make them here.
And im thinking the packaging is perhaps a safety feature to prevent people/kids accidentally taking too many. You have to individually pop every tablet out of the strip, rather than just pouring a whole load of them into your hand in one go.
@@orangew3988 While that is true, it should be noted that even in the US you would have to swallow an uncomfortable amount of pills to be at risk of overdosing on most medications. The acetomenophen 300mg tablets I have are pretty freaking huge, but most of it is filler, and you would need quite a lot of pills taken at once to overdose immediately. The risk is more about doubledosing or overdosing slightly over a long period of time (apparently acetomenophin fucks with your kidneys)
We do also get pills in boxes on strips though, my migraine medication comes like that.
Just wait until you find out that all the drugs that end in -azole do very different things: fluconazole (an anti fungal), omeprazole (reduces gastric acid secretion), metronidazole (an antibiotic), aripiprazole (an antipsychotic), carbimazole (reduced thyroid activity)
As a pharmacy tech I always hated differentiating PPIs and antibiotics FOR THIS REASON. It’s just named that way due to their structure.
I'd like to mention a medication that I take!! I take a stimulant called Azstarys (az-STAR-iss), which is much easier to pronounce than the generic names of serdexmethylphenidate and dexmethylphenidate. It's a relatively new medication, as im pretty sure the FDA only approved it in 2021.
The only time I use a branded name is when there is currently no generic version of a medication. For example, I take Jardiance (empagliflozin), which will only be available from its current manufacturer until late February, 2025. But I quit calling Prilosec (omeprazole) by its brand name as soon as it became available as a generic here in the US. It's still sold as Prilosec - often right next to its store-brand generic equivalent, which usually costs 20-30% less!
A lot of medications have a molecular or chemical name called IUPAC ID's which follow strict rules to of chemistry to name a substance. For example aspirin is 2-Acetoxybenzoic acid, it is 2 because the functional group is on the second carbon, from that name you can draw out the molecule. The IUPAC ID is used by toxicologists, some pharmacists and most definitely the manufacturers.
Is it not trademarked? Is copyright different in the pharmaceutical world? 4:26
It *is* trademark™, and pharma companies will bother to get it registered®. He either misspoke, or doesn't know the difference between copyright©, which is for creative works, and trademarks, which are for differentiating between brands.
In Germany a med has kinda two names either. One brand name and the name of the active pharmaceutical ingredient. This latter name is important for hospitals, because you might get the med "Aspirin", but it has the active pharmaceutical ingredient "acetylsalicylic acid". In the hospital, you may get another med with the same active pharmaceutical ingredient.
As an aussie pharmacist i can say that you got most of this right, however you are unfortunately incorrect that “no matter who makes it they still call it viagra” only Pfizer is allowed to call it viagra. Also in australia we definitely do not have to supply the brand if one is indicated on the prescription and in fact the doctors are no longer supposed to suggest a brand because of the misconception that generics are somehow different or inferior quality which simply isn’t the case. I literally got into pharmacy because i like saying the long names some of my favourites are phenoxymethylpenicillin, hydroxychloroquine, and hydrochlorothiazide. Also fun fact tadalafil (original brand name Cialis) is in the same family as Sildenafil so you know what it does and it was named as such because… ta dah!!!!
I'm a fan of penicillin V too (funny, when I text that word, I go with penicillin V, but when I'm in a conversation, I go with phenoxymethylpenicillin)
In the US, most laypeople refer to meds by a brand name, and if a doctor prescribes XYZ Brand, that's what has to be filled.
@@decgal81 pharmacies are usually required to fill the generic drug unless the doctor specifically writes or checks a box that says substitution isn't allowed, or the patient specifically requests the brand name.
@@amylaneioeven then, pharmacists know which types of medications are and aren’t okay to substitute. It’s normally medications which need to be dosed very precisely, like warfarin, is where they dispense the same brand name as what the patient is already taking.
Even though Pfizer owns the brand name to Viagra. People will still call the sildenafil tablets they are taking “Viagra” even if it’s a generic.
There are actually third names that are chemical names and with medications they can be literally pages long.
Great topic! Ive always passively wondered about this and the answers are way more interesting than I thought! Thank you, Patrick!
Ironically, I have thought of this question before in my head.
So why does Paracetamol/ Acetaminophen have two generic names? And more importantly, why is the standard dose 500mg in NZ, but 325mg in Canada?
In US standard is 325 and extra strength is 500
4:25 - pretty sure the brand name would fall under trademark, rather than copyright.
Indeed it is a trademark™, and pharma companies will bother to get it registered®. He either misspoke, or doesn't know the difference between copyright©, which is for creative works, and trademarks, which are for differentiating between brands.
Well, here's a subject that I didn't even know I needed an explanation for. Name Explaining is really branching out!
Then again, the IUPAC names are just as much, if not more of nightmares to deal with :/
And that's why I chose to study materials science instead of biochemistry
The only reason?
@@kreuner11 well, no. The other reason is that biochemistry research is incredibly frustrating.
The main issue with having a brand name and generic name is that people start to forget the generic name and refer to it by the brand name for which they are more famous in locally. Imagine if you ask for Panadol in America, where they call it Tylenol.
This is an issue with non-medically trained staff who dont know that prescription can only use generic names.
Handling this issue is my daily bread. 🍞
Mind you, calling it 'paracetamol' only partly solves the problem, as in the US they prefer 'acetaminophen'.
In Belgium pharmacists are encouraged (if not required) to propose a generic version of a drug when available (for example "paracetamol" instead of "Dafalgan(R)"
lmao can't believe boots got called a meal deal shop
One I find interesting is Aspirin (Acetyl Salicylic Acid), originally developed in 1897 by the German company Bayer as a refined and more effective variant of Salicylic Acid, the Trade name of Aspirin was coined. This took homage from the most abundant source of Salicylic Acid (In Europe and the Americas) coming from willow bark (or Aspar in Latin). However after Germany lost the Great War/WWI in 1918, several of its companies lost assets and trademarks; with Bayer losing the copyright to Aspirin. This then allowed the USA to adopt the name of Aspirin as the "generic" name and its distribution throughout the West followed suit in calling it Aspirin, however in Germany they honoured the original trademark and within the borders of Germany only Bayer is allowed to produce Aspirin, and any non-Bayer "Aspirin" must be sold as Acetyl Salicylic Acid (or ASA)
I have to add one important thing about branded vs generic medicine. In some, not all cases, the two are made with a different synthesis method and because of this some have different bioavailability. That is more or less how much is absorbed and utilized.
If you live in an aviary you cannot get asprin . cos the parrots eat em all
Oh, you!
wouldn't that be a tylenol?
@@amylaneio is paracetamol in the uk
@@highpath4776 aspirin and paracetamol are not the same thing. paracetamol and acetaminophen (aka Tylenol) are the same thing
Great topic! I never knew how they came up with medicine names.
Like with Floxacin there are the mycins (clindamycin) and clines (doxycycline) that are also antibiotics.
Also, if generic names became super long, I would use the brand over whatever the heck the generic "dumpster fire" name of the day is. 😂
Fun fact; when you burst into the pharmacy like that, you WILL get an Oxycontin bottle filled with colonoscopy purge.
"give me all your f*cking drugs!"
😂
One peculiar case where one medication has two different generic names is paracetamol (every other country I've lived in; popular brand Panadol) aka acetaminophen (USA; popular brand Tylenol). Anybody know why?
I mean, I'll sometimes say Advil or Motrin even if I mean ibuprofen generically, or Tylenol if I mean acetaminophen (paracetamol...for some reason it's got different generic names on different sides of the pond).
Pharmacists are trained to recommend a different product with the same active substance if they can't provide the exact product requested.
Aspirin was registered as a trademark in 1899 by Bayer and is still a trademark exclusive to Bayer in a number of countries, whereas in others it has become a generic name for acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) or in German speaking countries acetylsalicylsäure (ASS). This effect is known as "generic trademark" and can also be encountered in other fields: jell-o, kleenex, tempo, velcro, nylon ...
(By the way Heroin also started as a trademark by Bayer, falsely advertised as being non-addictive around 1900, as a pain killer and cough suppressant. That changed in the 1910s when it became a controlled substance, curiously there's still limited scope medical application but that's overshadowed by the use as an addictive illegal drug.)
Another benefit of generic names is that it's a broadly international standard in pharmacology and doctoring. Meaning you can go to any pharmacy in most countries around the world and get your prescription even if the local brand name is different.
I have been waiting for this video for decades!
This does help a bit with figuring this out
Yeah, it's like Methamphetamine used to be sold as Pervitin (OTC medication), and to this day, the name is still used (in certain countries) as the name for this substance. Sometimes, people just stick to the brand name
One reason why people might want the brand name is that the original brand name version usually has a smaller accuracy tolerance. That is to say, there is a smaller margin of error in how concentrated the active ingredient is. Sometimes that can make a noticeable difference.
It’s like Disney World vs amusement park. Brand and generic name. And the brand’s inventor has an incentive to make the generic name tough to spell or say, the doctor and everyone else is more likely to use their brand name and thus, more likely patients end up getting the brand.
Interesting relevant story I have is that I’m allergic to a medication and didn’t know the generic name for it for years and years. People had to search for the name I gave before they knew what it was.
I saw someone somewhere say that medicines are named after the elf that makes them.
I am pretty sure viagra is a portmanteau of 'vigorous' and 'Niagara Falls'
7:02 and yet, I've had a pharmacy mix up sertraline and citirizine 😔
A trademark is not a copyright.
A brand name often is not just a trademarked synonym of a generic name. It may be the name of a formulation with multiple active ingredients, or of a particular dosage or mode of administration. For example, Ozempic and Rybelsus are both brand-name versions of semaglutide, but Ozempic is injected and Rybelsus is a pill.
Not only do multiple companies compete for consumer spending, but even the same store's generic compete with others -- I remember a few years back when the house brand had two forms of ibuprofen, one that looks like Advil, and another that looked like Motrin, one of the other major brands in the US. All four were identical in effect of course, as they all had the same active ingredient.
I know the generic names of all my meds, but not the brand names. It gets fun when half of my doctors call them by the brand names and half call them by the generic names.
In the US when it comes to ibuprofen, if it's a national name brand like Excedrin or Bayer or Advil, we'll refer to it by the the brand name or call it Motrin. We also have a brand called Motrin IB . Basically we use Ibuprofen and Motrin interchangeably since it's basically the same family., whether it's a name brand or store generic from CVS, Kroger, Walgreens, etc. same with Pain relievers with Acetaminophen, we refer to national name brand and store generic brand as Tylenol ( for our Uk friends paracetamol)
Problem is there are name that are similar enough that the wrong med does occasionally get dispensed.
Here Is the Catalogue of Union Chemique Belge levetiracetam (Keppra), Briveracetam (Briveract) lacosimide (Vimpat) Midazolam (Naysilam)(US only) (Epilepsy) Neupro (rotigotine)
Parkinson's disease: Neupro (rotigotine) (Restless Legs Syndrome) Fintepla (fenfluramine) (Epilepsy specifically Dravet Syndrome)
Sometimes there is a difference between generic and name brand due to the different filler ingredients being used in the tab/capsule.. or at least it’s that way in the US anyways
Not to mention commercials for these are everywhere
At least here in the US we have what's called Dispense as Written (DAW) codes on the scripts. The Doctor could write the brand name on the prescription but unless specified with the DAW as needing to be the brand medication, it will likely be switched to generic.
I take a prescribed generic medication whose name is 'furosemide'. Both my GP and my pharmacist always refer to it as 'Lasix', its brand name. I also take guaifenesin, known to most people as 'Mucinex' regardless of who makes it.
It might have been nice to have a short bit in here about how the brand name drugs can have the same ACTIVE ingredient, but they can be in differing amounts AND have different fillers.
So how do we distinguish the -mabs and the -tibs from each other?
Mabs are monoclonal antibodies (MAB), and the -tibs and -nibs are tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Many cancer drugs and immunosuppressants belong to these classes.
That’s good and all, but if I’m presented with the generic name, how do I tell whether or not it’s for psoriasis, crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, eczema, asthma, cancer, leukemia, or any other number of medical conditions?
I think it's insane how I need to EITHER have generic *or* brand name for my methylphenidate since it's controlled.. If I'm perscribed brand name, I can't get generic, but if I'm perscribed generic, I can't get brand name. It sucks when my insurance tandomly switches which option is covered vs which one isn't...
Just a little correction: In America, at least, brand names are covered by trademark law, not copyright law.
In the Philippines, we have a law that medicines should have it's generic name the same font size as its brand name. It's to increase the trust from the general public to buy cheaper generic brands and to believe they're the same as branded medicine
The same law also encourages celebrities to endorse "generic pharmacies" whose main sell purpose is to sell generic brands
Sometimes brand name is put in prescription because of patient having allergy to some specific coloring or addative that this one brand don't use.
You forgot the huge issue of brand names suddenly being changed to refer to a completely different medication. This happened to Sudafed.
When I read the title, as a med student I said "finally someone asked that question", I have to check the Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary every time I see a word I understand but can't even think of pronouncing, it's funny but it bothers me often when I try to explain something related to a disease treatment and I just happen to forget how something was said, or I pronounce it differently
Like metoprolol, since atenolol is stressed on the antepenultimate syllable, I figured it'd be the same for metoprolol, and according to the Merriam-Webster's, that's true, but it's also valid to say me-to-PRO-lol (according to Collins Dictionary), I end up pronouncing that word whatever I feel like at the moment LOL
I had a large disagreement with a friend over a brand name and how in the US it's behind the counter. They disagreed because the brand name meant it had the generic name in it and it didn't but the brand recognition was so strong they wouldn't believe me. Pseudoephedrine, Sudafed and Sudafed-PE.
There are some meds where they have the same generic name, but need to be clarified as to which brand name's generic it is. In the US doctors write either the brand or generic name and have a Dispense As Written (DAW) code to clarify if brand is medically necessary or not. It can make a difference for some meds and for some patients. Synthroid (levothyroxine) is a common one.
9:35 I thought you were going into a sponsor segment there for a second lmao.
I’ve noticed that generic names are sometimes made significantly longer than the brand names and I wonder if that's not on purpose to make people want to say the brand name more.
Next they can try something like:
Brand: Antiver
Generic: Notantiver
And then there are meds with two generic names, like how tylenol's generic name is acetaminophen in America and paracetamol in the UK.
At the very start where you name random names from the NHS website I think it's a little confusing to mix generic names (hydrocortisone) with brand names (Paxlovid etc.). Especially because, though you didn't explain it in the video, many generic names are actually just chemical names (often shortened) following IUPAC nomenclature, which deserves its own video I think. It's actually quite a neat little system, and very logical too!
nitpick: brand names will generally be protected by trademark, not copyright
I have a question. Why are some words in English just negations of the positive? I know that hate and love are nearly opposite, but why do we "dislike" something? Unwell and sick mean somewhat the same thing, but there are other examples when we can't express disdain without negating a positive expression. Any thoughts on this?
Hi! Could you do a video about Vietnam's provinces and municipalities? Thanks.
4:33 shouldn't it be "trademarked"?
6:07 organic chemistry things; all of those are fluoroquinolone antibiotics, i.e. based on a molecule called 4-quinolone (that name is a whole rabbithole in itself) with a fluorine and an oxomethyl group added to it, so they can also be called fluorooxomethylquinolone (wth numbers for the placements, and extra substituents). Shorten it like so: fl(uoro)ox(omethyl)quin(olone), change the "qu" for a "c" due to convention and pad with an "a" after the x, and voilá.
7:00 may be a new rule, because ofloxacin is a thing.
7:09 and yet they manage to become confusing when they take the easy way out: there's an antidepressand called "citalopram", which is a mixture of two enantiomers (same molecule, but mirror images), and when they found that one of them was more effective than the other (what's called the S-enantiomer), they turned it into a new medication they named "escitalopram" (from "S"-"citalopram"), which can be very confusing.
8:20 and then you cave cases where everyone is pushing for a different generic name, like with paracetamol/tylenol/acetaminophen (all of them different shortenings of the same word).
9:40 and even closer to "vigor".
Brand names are trademarked, not copywritten.
I love names, I am here after all, but I learn the generic names of all the medications I take and also what they are called in different countries like paracetamol and acetaminophen
Your fictitious example of names that sound too much alike is actually pretty close to a real example we have in the US-- Anbesol, which is for toothaches, canker sores, and other mouth pain, and Anusol, which is for hemorrhoids. Those are both brand names, though, not generic.
I was wondering why sometimes even the generic name for a medication can be different in different countries, such as acetaminophen and paracetamol?
Generic medication costs less because they don't have to pay for the research. Where medication comes from (including the not yet discovered cancer pill) is through research.
All the -floxacins are not just antibiotics but fluoroquinolone antibiotics.
Prozac is brand name, fluoxetine is the generic
I have gone through the wonderful journey of chemotherapy, and some of the names of the drugs I was given were so weird.
After being diagnosed with epilepsy in 2021 I am currently taking Levetiracetam and lomatrigine. Who comes up with this? 😂
"I use viagra"
- Name Explain, 2024