Is Viagra Still Viagra By Any Other Name?
Updated 11:26 AM ET June 2, 1999
By Kathy Fieweger
CHICAGO (Reuters) -
Celebrex. Viagra. Zithromax.
What's in a name?
For pharmaceutical companies, the right name will sell a new
drug like no other. Millions of dollars are spent making sure the
catchiest moniker is picked years before the compound ever
hits the market.
According to Naseem Javed, author of "Naming for Power,"
names are like weapons, marketing weapons, with one main
function: to come to the mind of the buyer at the time of
purchase. Drugs are no exception.
"Today, if your business -- whether big or small, local or
global, with a product of service -- has a poor name, it will
quickly be on the fast track to oblivion," Javed said.
Indeed, impotence drug Viagra, the hottest drug launch of
1998, conjures up the image of vitality; antibiotic Zithromax,
power; arthritis pain-reliever Celebrex, joy and happiness.
Would Viagra have sold as much if it had the less-catchy name
of Alond? That name was a runner-up and now represents a
diabetes drug that Pfizer has in late-stage development. It was
pitched overboard in favor of Viagra, which a Pfizer
spokesman said was "just sitting around."
Pharmaceutical executives say the new trend in their industry is
to name compounds early on in development, perhaps two to
four years before they are approved by the Food and Drug
Administration.
"In the past, it used to be that you named these products pretty
close to their FDA approval or when you filed with the FDA,"
said Edward Fiorentino, vice president of commercial
operations for the pharmaceutical division at Abbott
Laboratories Inc. in North Chicago, Ill. "That is a big trend in
our industry -- to really get a much stronger focus on
branding."
MILLIONS AT STAKE
A typical drug development project can take 5 to 10 years
from start to finish, costing $400 million to $500 million. With
that kind of money at stake, no expenses are spared in making
sure the all-important name sounds right. It must associate
traits of the drug in the patient's mind and be written and
understood easily by both pharmacists and doctors.
"It's pretty sophisticated stuff," Fiorentino said.
Monsanto Co. has had to learn this the hard way, redoubling
efforts this spring to let people know that its new arthritis drug
is called Celebrex and not Celexa, made by Forest
Laboratories Inc. and used to treat depression.
Muddying the successful launch of Celebrex, a compound for
rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, is confusion with Celexa
and also Cerebyx, prescribed for epilepsy and seizures.
According to published reports, as many as 70 or so people
have gotten prescriptions for the wrong drug, with 13 of them
actually taking the wrong pill. This can be a very dangerous
situation with all of the various interactions with other drugs that
can occur.
One drug expert said a second name change for Celebrex may
be required. Monsanto's G.D. Searle division already changed
the name from Celebra before the drug was launched, at the
request of the FDA, because it sounded too much like Celexa.
"It is an issue," said David Saks, senior drug analyst at Gruntal
and Co. "They're very much aware of it. It does happen. A
name change would be hurtful."
Searle disputes that likelihood, however. "That is not our
understanding," said spokeswoman Claudia Kovitz. "The FDA
has agreed to an education approach to try to avoid any
potential prescribing errors."
An FDA spokesman confirmed this although one published
report said the agency still had not ruled out a name change.
VIAGRA WAS HANGING AROUND
So how does a drug get named in the first place? According to
Fiorentino, the first step is to understand what new therapies
the drug brings to the marketplace.
In the case of Norvir, for example, Abbott's protease inhibitor
for treating AIDS patients, the drug works to bring levels of the
virus to undetectable levels. In other words, "no virus" -- or
Norvir.
Such a name comes up either through brainstorming or by
using computer models which can generate names based on
certain adjectives the drug company wants to associate,
Fiorentino said. There are computer software programs to do
this as well as outside companies which make their money
doing only this.
Some 300 names might be generated in this initial phase,
Fiorentino said, which then get put through a global trademark
search. Some of the names that make it through that test are
then sent out to the doctor, pharmacists and patients and tested
in actual prescribing simulations.
"Are they easy to write? That's very important," Fiorentino
said. "A doctor in an average day may write 75 prescriptions."
Once a name passes the pronunciation and written exams,
marketing executives and senior management make the choice.
Considering all this, changing a name after FDA approval is
"something that you certainly would much rather not do, to put
it mildly," Fiorentino said. "The biggest consideration is that
you've invested a lot of money in the brand."
Although it may be a blow, executives and analysts concede
changing a drug's name is not necessarily lethal. Analysts point
to the case of AstraZeneca's Prilosec, a drug for treating
ulcers, that was once called Losec in the United States and is
still a $3 billion seller despite a name change.
Still, "what we try to do is never change the name," Fiorentino
said. "It takes a long time to establish a brand."
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