If you ever watch regular TV anymore, you are exposed to drugs constantly, because pharmaceutical companies buy all the ad space. You don't know what they are for, but you hear the names constantly: Tremfya, Rinvoq, Cialis, Dupixent, Skyrizi, and you can't actually ask your doctor if any are right for you because she'd probably laugh. The best drug name I've heard is Flonase, which tells you exactly what it does, but most of them seem like gibberish. You might think that naming them is a matter of drawing Scrabble tiles out of a box, yet that's far from what happens. Drug names have to be approved by a lot of different boards or organizations, mainly to make sure yours is different enough from all the other drugs so that they won't be confused. And there are tons of guidelines to follow. Half as Interesting takes us through the arcane procedure of naming a new drug. Note: some countries do it differently, because the UK does call that drug NovoRapid, and Rogaine is known as Regaine in Australia.
Sunday, August 23, 2026
How to Name a Drug
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5 comments:
I take exception to the first sentence, in my neck of the woods we would have no local television were it not for the accident lawyers.
In my neck of the woods it's a round robin of Rx, injury lawyers, and medicare advantage commercials. I'm in a major metropolitan area.
In my neck of the woods, leastways the country where I spend a part of the year, it is also legal to advertise drugs on the TV, the only other country apart from the USA to allow such ads.
Not as bad as the states (I am told) as there isn't the same massive mark up as you have there, hence they don't spend as much on advertising (most of their budget, it is rumoured, is spent giving the prescribing doctors 'free' stuff)
I myself gave up watching regular TV way back in 2010 ish, because I already had curtains, have brand loyalty to the make of car I already drive, didn't partake of take-aways much, and didn't and don't need underarm deodorant ... and those adverts were splitting up any show I watched with those louder volumed insults to my intelligence every 15 minutes.
I also live 6 months per year in Australia, where it is illegal to advertise drugs (legal drugs are called medicines here, asking for drugs makes you look like a heroin or fentanyl addict) ... but the adverts are as bad as in New Zealand just with a more nasal accent.
Also, both countries' governments partially or wholly fund most of the TV stations, which are then run by very woke people who force the indigenous people's language on us all in Australia.
And in New Zealand the government forces, and much more so, the earlier immigrants language ---the New Zealand Maori moved from Hawaii and other islands to New Zealand 400 years before the Europeans came, who then stopped them being cannibals, so they are hardly indigenous--- on the population.
Imagine in America having a whole lot of your words being replaced with American Indian words by your government, because the Indians were there first, but those Indians were overpowered by a superior force, and now you have to speak their words to assuage your guilt or something, even though you didn't mistreat them in anyway because you were not alive back then and don't mistreat them in any way now.
I suppose Chevrolet is ok, do you still have Pontiac ?
Do you call your houses wigwams ?
Excuse the long winded words, just trying to delay getting off my bum and taking all the drugs that stop my atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, diabetes, swollen ankles, vertigo, early onset dementia ... where was I ? ... oh, yes, and flatulence.
Major metropolitan area would more better be described as your neck of the hoods.
Gleemonex, from the Kids In The Hall movie /Brain Candy/. Salesman: "You feel like it's 72 degrees, in your head, all the time." Scientist: "It makes your happy happy." Dosed CEO: "Whoa... I stepped out of my shoe..."
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