The 'secret' behind the drug name Viagra

When you get a prescription for Viagra, Lunesta, Advair or Paxlovid, do you wonder why they carry that name?

President Scott Piergrossi of Brand Academy, a name development company based in Miami, Florida (USA), said that although people like to mock pharmaceutical brand names, they should understand that Drug brand names are intended to minimize name confusion.

"Drug naming is an art and a science"

Todd Bridges, global president of the Institute for Drug Safety, the regulator of the Brand Institute, says the drug naming process consists of three stages.

Viagra is one of the powerful drug names - (Image: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)

• In phase 1, a company specializing in brand strategy and marketing will develop potential names.
• Phase 2 is an assessment by experts from the commercial, regulatory and legal departments of the drug manufacturer.
• The final stage is the regulatory proceedings involving FDA regulatory review and approval.

"While naming a drug may seem bizarre, it's a very elaborate process," said Suzanne Martinez, strategist at Intouch (a Chicago-based pharmaceutical marketing agency). speak. "Naming drugs is an art and a science," she added.

On the creative side, brand strategists and imaginative people try to come up with names that are catchy and resonate with consumers with both message and tone. This involves linguistic, legal, and textual challenges. At the same time, they wanted to avoid any prefixes or suffixes that could have negative, derogatory connotations to the drug name.

That can be complicated, as the pharmaceutical business goes beyond borders and "most pharmaceutical companies look for a name that can operate globally," Ms. Martinez said.

A name or syllable that might make sense in the US might not be the case in the European market. For example, the word mist means "mist" and has a positive connotation in English, but it means "poop" in German.

On average, pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a drug name, and the whole process usually takes two to three years, although for Covid-19 drugs it is quicker, Piergrossi said.

Why is it named Viagra?

When developing a name, strategists will sometimes try to embed a reference to the biology behind the drug. For example, the cancer drug Xalkori is an ALK - short for anaplastic lymphoma kinase inhibitor, while Zelboraf - used to treat melanoma, is a molecule that inhibits the BRAF gene.

"They sound like unfamiliar names, but they can hint doctors at how they work," said R. John Fidelino, head of innovation and impact at The Development ( a marketing and brand strategy consulting firm in New York City).

Sometimes companies want their drug brand names to stir emotions or be highly suggestive of the drug's effects, for example Advair (asthma prevention, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) which includes words that refer to the air. and breath.

Participating in the naming of Viagra, the first drug to treat erectile dysfunction, Fidelino explains: "The name was chosen because it represents the vigor and vitality that a man has with him. he wanted to experience and achieve in overcoming erectile dysfunction".

Common drug names are based on specific syllables strung together to convey information about a drug's chemical structure or action. For example, Bebtelovimab is a newly approved monoclonal antibody drug that can be used to treat Covid-19; like other monoclonal antibodies, the name ends with -mab.

In the US, these are adopted by the American Naming Council and designated as a prerequisite for marketing a drug. "The last part of the drug's name indicates the drug," says Ms. Martinez. "It's like a little scientific formula in a name."

Ultimately, the FDA will issue approval for a drug's brand name.

To determine whether to approve a proposed name, one of the steps the FDA uses is a software program commonly known as POCA (Phonetic and Orthographic Computerized Analysis). The program uses an advanced algorithm to identify similarities between drug names, both when they are spoken and written as prescriptions.