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Imdelltra. Lumisight. Zevtera.
These new, created-from-scratch words are now the brand names of three new brands. FDA-approved drugsThey represent a treatment for small cell lung cancer, an optical imaging agent for cancer detection, and an antibiotic, respectively.
Not only does a drug’s name need to be memorable and memorable in some way; Strict FDA guidelinesThis is because it is approved along with the drug label.
“There are so many legal and feasibility aspects to consider when deciding on a name, and it can take months,” said Jonathan Finer, director of strategy at Conran Design Group, a design and brand development firm whose clients include major pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Pfizer, Novartis and Merck. “In many ways, these are the most difficult and demanding aspects of the naming process.”
Jonathan Finer, Strategic Director, Conran Design Group
Used with permission from Conran Design Group
Today, the research and development and commercialization process moves faster than ever before and the branded pharmaceutical field is more crowded than ever before, with thousands of new drugs in development. As a result, Feiner says companies need to start the naming process “as early as possible” to ensure the name will work from a regulatory, patent, trademark, language, URL availability and branding perspective.
“Think about it very early in the merchandising process,” he said. “A name is a really funny thing. It’s the shortest story you can tell about your brand. It’s how you identify your brand.”
Here are three important considerations for the drug naming process:
Overcoming regulatory hurdles
Before getting creative with a brand name, drug developers and branding experts must first ensure that it fits within the FDA regulatory framework. For example, the brand name must be unique and newly coined, but it also cannot be too similar in spelling or pronunciation to other existing brand names.
The main reason is that errors can occur between drugs with similar names.
“The first legal parameter in naming is to avoid confusion, both for the patient’s medicine chest and for the pharmacists in the large health system,” Feiner says. “From a legal perspective, it creates differentiation.”
The FDA’s latest drug naming guidelines, published in December 2020, also list other considerations, such as ease of pronunciation, avoiding specific references to the drug’s ingredients or how the drug is made or administered, and avoiding names that are too similar to brand names in other countries.
In fact, Finer said the naming process is so rigorous that every potential name goes through a preliminary trademark review.
“We never show a candidate’s name to a client without a preliminary legal review,” he said. “Candidates at the creative development stage are very likely not viable.”
Thinking about language and writing
In addition to considering existing brand names, pharmaceutical companies must also consider other languages, cultural connotations from other countries, and current pharmaceutical naming conventions when naming new drugs.
Names need to be “meaningful and appealing to the English-speaking ear,” Finer said, but also meaningful and appealing to speakers of other languages, including Romance, Slavic and Asian languages, and cannot have offensive or counterproductive translations.
Additionally, drug naming conventions have evolved over the years to become recognized and expected by consumers — in other words, they sound like drug names.
“They seem to have similar structures: two or three syllables, often omitting vowels, not many consecutive consonants, truncated words, and alternative spellings or letters like Y for I and X for S,” Finer says. “All of this has led to little conventions in drug naming.”
On the other hand, “bad” names have too many consecutive consonants, which can be confusing or difficult to pronounce.
“Names like Evrysdi, Reyvow and Xywav reflect how innovative letterforms and unique sounds are becoming the new norm,” Feiner says. “Our challenge as namers is to balance the need for names to conform to this convention while also being disruptive when necessary.”
Evoke emotions and thoughts
Naming a drug seems like it’s all about constraints, but there are ways to be creative within those constraints.
“It takes us back to the most basic part of those words: strings of letters. How certain letters look and sound together to form meaningful ideas — strings that suggest a story,” Finer said. “They suggest some of the themes and emotions we might associate with drugs.”
A good example is the insomnia drug Lunesta, Feiner said.
“The name of the medicine that I really love is Lunesta because it beautifully captures the essence of what it does. The name evokes a sense of tranquility and peace, and ‘Luna’ represents the moon, which is the universal symbol of sleep,” he said. “It’s simple, yet evocative, memorable and perfectly aligned with the product’s purpose of helping you sleep.”
Recently Approved Drugs Lumisite Apparently, this also works: It’s an intravenously administered fluorescent imaging drug that detects cancerous tissue after mastectomy, and its name alludes to both the fluorescence (lumi) and the method (sight) that helps detect cancer.
Finer also cited the name of AbuVie’s Skylisi, a drug used to treat plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and Crohn’s disease, which incorporates the word “sky” in its coined name to convey a sense of lightness and clarity — a feeling that extends to other branding elements, such as its website, which depicts an airplane flying through a clear blue sky dotted with thin white clouds.
The power of names
While it’s nearly impossible to quantify whether a name will have a meaningful impact on a drug’s sales, it’s important to come up with a name that’s memorable, memorable, and meaningful while still fitting within the FDA framework.
Finer said the name is “a very powerful thing in eliciting connections.”
“Giving a product name to a medicine brings it to life in a unique way. It makes it more real and relatable, which is the basis for building a connection. Branding is all about connection and relationships. That’s the first takeaway.”
