Beth Snyder Bulik of ENDPOINTSNEWS contacted me recently to ask for my opinion on the naming of Covid-19 variants. Here’s what I had to say.
Science was the name of the game in pharma drugs last year — literally.
FDA-approved drug names in 2022 leaned heavily on science associations, according to experts. While that’s not unusual, in a year of fewer approvals than any in the past six years, the overall naming conventions more often recalled
familiar strategy than breakout surprise.
Why? One of the leading reasons is that it’s just harder to come up with unique, attribute-related names. In part, that’s because they’ve already been trademarked and are off-market, while the FDA is more discerning about the overt use of product attributes or potential benefits in brand names.
“The class of drug or mechanism of action are concepts that are fundamental to the story behind why these are novel drugs,” said Brand Institute president of creative Scott Piergrossi. “… Last year, we had a lot of name approvals that were mechanism-driven and indication associated, which usually is not as common as it would be in some areas like vaccines.”
In 2022, Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine Spikevax (approved in January) was approved, but even it had a double association of not only “spike” as a power verb meaning “to get rid of,” but also a tie to science in recalling the coronavirus spike protein.
Brandsymbol managing director Daniel Plaisance agreed that many in the recent crop of drug names are more familiar and traditional because they’re “very much scientific based.”
He offered as an example Bristol Myers Squibb’s Sotyktu oral psoriasis med, which Brandsymbol worked on. The TYK2 inhibitor includes the “tyk2” target spelled out as “tyktu,” and also refers to the fact that it’s a selective oral inhibitor, in the first syllable “so.”
“It’s very functional in nature, and we even saw when it was made public, a physician posted on LinkedIn: ‘Finally a name that makes sense,’” Plaisance said. “It’s because it does speak directly to healthcare professionals and to physicians who understand more what it is.”
And that’s another reason for a more science-y name. The many specialty drugs coming to market are marketed more often to the physicians who will prescribe them and tend to lean on connections to mechanisms of action or target technology that wouldn’t be as familiar to patients.
For example, cancer drug Krazati (approved in December) is a mashup of the KRAS biomarker — it’s a KRAS inhibitor to treat lung cancer — and the name of the drugmaker Mirati Therapeutics. Krazati also follows in the similar footsteps of the first FDA-approved KRAS drug, Amgen’s Lumakras, approved in 2021, which also includes the once-thought undruggable target moniker.
“What we see in the new or novel classes of drugs is there is sometimes a bit of a land grab for the mechanism of action within the name,” Piergrossi said, adding that the use of the “z” instead of “s” in Krazati also helps with pronunciation and is more dynamic.
While he cautioned against MOAs inside drug names as a potential diminishing return as a differentiator when the category grows, there is still room for inventiveness. Brand Institute worked on Johnson & Johnson and Legend Biotech’s Carvykti (approved in February) which incorporates the CAR-T cell therapy in the name. While there are now a handful of approved CAR-T drugs, the drugmakers went back to the drug class name — where brands such as Yescarta and Tecartus are already established — and took a creative spin, he said.
Eisai follows family ties with name for newly approved Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi.
Of course, there were still some so-called “blank canvas,” made-up drug names making appearances last year. One noted by the experts was Quviviq, Idorsia’s insomnia medicine, which was the first approved drug of the year in early January 2022.
The unusual name begins and ends with “q” and includes the energetic lively syllable “viv.” It’s also easy to pronounce, with a “u” following the lead letter. While “qu” is an always go-together rule in English grammar, it’s not always followed in drug naming schemes.
Laurel Sutton, co-founder of naming agency Catchword and president of American Name Society, said, “The way that they spell it in advertising and on the packaging has the middle syllable emphasized so you know where the stress is supposed to go, and that’s pretty clever.”
She also pointed to Revance Therapeutics’ Botox competitor Daxxify as another strong name, although it also has a connection to its science. Its first syllable, “dax,” recalls its active ingredient daxibotulinumtoxinA-lanm. However, the double “x” helps it stand out, and the use of the “ify” at the ending makes it sound more active with the suffix that means “to become.”
Another common theme in 2022, along with science connections, was the use of three-syllable drug names, which has become pretty standard over the past few years.
“Three is the go-to because it’s easier to get names through. Two syllables are nicer because they’re short, but it’s hard to find two-syllable words that will get approved,” she said.