<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><div>Generics are named by chemists, and there are some regulations/guidelines on what to call them (for example, drugs in the same class tend to have a shared stem, which could be a prefix, an infix or a suffix) which makes for rather baroque neologisms.</div><div><br></div><div>Pharmaceutical companies probably spend small fortunes on finding good names for their drugs, in recognition of the fact that names make money. Many times, a successful drug name is recycled if it has proven a successful seller; for example at least four drugs sold under the name Mylanta have different active ingredients or combinations thereof. On the other hand, when they do have to come up with a new name, they have a tough task: the name must be distinctive, not too similar with the generic name or another proprietary name, not suggestive of something that it's not going to deliver (think Rogaine, initially proposed as Regaine!), but, at the same time, it has to be memorable. </div><div><div><div><br></div><div>Three or four years back FDA announced that it started using a system called POCA (standing for Phonetic and Orthographic Computer Analysis) to analyze proposed proprietary names for possible orthographic and/or phonetic confusion with existing drug names. For all I know not much has been said about it since, but I understand that it is in use. Greg Kondrak and Bonnie Dorr worked on that system; it occurs to me that they must have had access to or compiled a pronunciation dictionary (presumably from the USP Dictionary) though it's quite possible that it isn't a free resource (I'd be interested in it, too, if it were!). Here's an article about their research: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; "></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; ">Kondrak, Grzegorz, and Bonnie J. Dorr, "Identification of Confusable Drug Names: A New Approach and Evaluation Methodology",<i>Journal of AI in Medicine</i>, Volume 36:1, pp. 29--42, 2006. <a href="ftp://ftp.umiacs.umd.edu/pub/bonnie/ARTMEDX861.pdf">PDF</a></span></div><div><br></div><div>Lucian</div><div><br></div></div></div><div><div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>* * *</div><div><b style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">Lucian Galescu, PhD</span></b></div><div>Research Scientist, IHMC</div><div><br></div></div></span> </div><br><div><html>On Mar 29, 2008, at 7:27 PM, Angus Grieve-Smith wrote:</html><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, Dr DJ Hatch wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite">But are these labels provided by the marketing people or the chemists? <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">You seen to suggest the former, Angus.<br></blockquote><br> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Both, actually, and that's part of the problem. Every drug has a <br>generic name, which generally seem to be made up by chemists, and at least <br>one brand name, which seem to be made up by marketing people. Having <br>multiple names for every drug, each name with its own delicate balance of <br>similarity to and distinction from the other names, uses up names <br>unnecessarily (from the consumer's point of view). There is a limit to <br>the number of drug names that a human being can reasonably be expected to <br>hold in memory and distinguish phonologically, and it's a waste to use <br>that up on brand distinctions.<br><br> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>For example, just last week I was looking for pseudoephedrine <br>hydrochloride (brand name Sudafed) in a local pharmacy. It's usually <br>behind the pharmacy counter, so I asked a pharmacist. She started walking <br>towards the cold medicine aisle, which made me realize that she was going <br>to give me phenylephrine hydrochloride (brand name Sudafed PE), so I had <br>to tell her, "No, I'm looking for pseudoephedrine." She directed me to <br>the front counter, which is where they keep pseudoephedrine in this <br>pharmacy.<br><br> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>This is a frequent occurrence for me, and it's compounded by the <br>fact that I'm used to calling the stuff "Sudafed," and don't have practice <br>calling it "pseudoephedrine." I came up with a "reading pronunciation" of <br>the generic name, "sud-EF-a-drin," which is incorrect: the pharmacists <br>call it "su-do-ef-ED-rin." I've learned to pronounce it the correct way, <br>but when I'm under stress (like when I'm in a pharmacy trying to get my <br>medicine before the pharmacist gets impatient and walks away), my old <br>invented pronunciation comes out.<br><br> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I'm not trying to put blame on anyone in particular, I'm just <br>pointing out that this is an area where literacy - even a grad school <br>education - isn't enough to avoid confusion. It's a problem largely <br>created by the idiosyncracies of the intellectual property system that was <br>set up to generate profits for drug companies and thus encourage them to <br>produce new drugs. You can attack it from the literacy angle, but there <br>are other angles to it that might be more effective.<br><br> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>-Angus B. Grieve-Smith<br> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><a href="mailto:grvsmth@panix.com">grvsmth@panix.com</a><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Corpora mailing list<br>Corpora@uib.no<br>http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora<br><br></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div></body></html>