Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19877

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Magazine

Gressor M
Game of the name
The Sydney Morning Herald - Health and Science Supplement 2006 Feb 1
http://www.smh.com.au/news/health-and-fitness/game-of-the-name/2006/02/01/1138590559467.html

Full text:

Consider, for a moment, the word “Viagra”. Does it conjure up visions of Niagara Falls, boundless vigour and thunderous virility? It could, if you’re as suggestible as many males afflicted with erectile dysfunction (ED). Now consider “sildenafil”. Sounds like some kind of fish oil, doesn’t it? But they’re both names for the same thing: an impotence treatment.

The name of Viagra’s rival Cialis is even more evocative, reading and sounding like cielo (“Heaven” in Spanish and Italian). Levitra, another ED drug available in the US, builds on this uplifting theme, with connotations of levitation and vitality. Meanwhile, in down-to-earth India, the local version of Viagra is flogged as Erecto.

Generally speaking, however, medication names tend towards ambiguity, according to Dr Peter Mansfield, director of Healthy Scepticism, a group campaigning against unethical pharmaceutical marketing. “They’re often made up of fragments of other words and different people come up with different interpretations,” he says. “Advertising [including branding] is like a Rorschach blot [a psychological test involving the interpretation of random ink patterns]; you impose your own meaning and, in particular, your hopes upon it.”

Mansfield cites the insomnia drug Stilnox as having “connotations of still or quiet nights”, while Cogentin, a treatment for Parkinson’s disease, sounds like it’s “going to sharpen your cognitive faculties”. Meanwhile, the anti-flu drug Relenza sounds like a conflation of “relieve” and “influenza”, which is pretty much what it does.

Where do these names come from? Every drug has three names: its chemical name, usually unpronounceable, which refers to the compound’s structure; its non-proprietary generic name, often a contraction of the chemical name; and its brand or proprietary name, the one by which it’s sold. Unlike the first two, the brand name is likely to be catchy and, increasingly, evocative and experiential. Experiential names imbue products with positive experiences (eg, the anti-inflammatory Celebrex, which conveys celebration, according to Mansfield), while evocative names evoke pleasant associations (e.g, Halcion, an insomnia drug which sounds like “halcyon”, meaning calm or peaceful).

Branding has become big business, particularly in the US, where pharmaceutical companies can advertise directly to consumers, so they’re increasingly turning to branding agencies to devise names for their wares. This can be a lengthy process that involves combing databases for appealing words, ensuring that they’re acceptable in other languages, then testing them on focus groups and checking how distinguishable they are from other medication names.

The latter is a major concern for regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration in the US and, in Australia, the Therapeutic Goods Administration. It’s also the bugbear of pharmacists, according to Brian Grogan, president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia which raises concerns against soundalike brands for different drugs (such as Aldalat/Aldomat, Becotide/Berotec and dozens more).

“It’s a constant battle to make the manufacturers aware of the problems associated with similar names and packaging, which are very confusing to many consumers, particularly the visually impaired or elderly, who can overmedicate,” he says.

About 10 per cent of all drug mishaps, a major cause of illness and death, are due to confusion over names. The FDA reviews about 400 brand names a year and rejects about a third for this or other reasons. It also bans names that make misleading claims, suggest uses for which a drug isn’t approved, or promise too much.

“If the name implies that the medicine will have a particular effect that is not supported by data … it would not be allowed,” says Dr Narelle Bowern, of Medicines Australia, which represents pharmaceutical companies in this country.

What’s the problem? Just as the makers of soap or toilet paper call their wares Dove or Sorbent to imply gentleness or absorbency, aren’t pharmaceutical manufacturers entitled to give their medications punchy names?

Healthy Skepticism’s Peter Mansfield sees it differently. “These names have connotations that help sell the drug, but sometimes they’re misleading so patients can be harmed,” he argues.

Even the most inspired marketers can have a bad name day. Take the hormone replacement treatment Premarin: its base ingredient is pregnant mares’ urine. By any other name, it might smell a whole lot sweeter.

THE X FACTOR

Xenical. Xanax. Xeloda. Lasix. Celebrex. Zactin. Zestril. Zocor. Zoton. Zyban. Zithromax. Zantac. Prozac. Zoloft.

Notice a trend? A disproportionate number of drug names start with or contain the letters X or Z. Both are fricatives (sibilant sounds suggesting strength and speed) and they look distinctive, making names incorporating them memorable for the doctor writing the prescription and the consumer reading the label.

X is particularly loaded with futuristic and high-tech connotations, ranging from the powerful (think Xena the warrior princess or Vin Diesel in the xXx action flick series) to the sexual (explicit, X-rated), sci-fi (The X-Files), or just plain fabulous (excellent, exciting).