The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7256 p4
5 July 2003

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Proposal to adopt the use of recommended international non-proprietary names (rINNs) to replace British Approved Names (BANs) (PDF 85K)

Medicine name changes go ahead

The planned change from British Approved Names (BANs) to recommended International Nonproprietary Names (rINNs) at the end of the year has been confirmed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (PJ, 14 September 2002, p352). However, two BANs — adrenaline and noradrenaline — will remain in use in the United Kingdom.

The name changes will be published in the July 2003 edition of the British Pharmacopoeia and companies will have until December 2004 to get their marketing authorisations altered to reflect the new names. Changes will be timetabled where a possible safety risk is associated with specific substances.

Product literature which accompanies medicines not affected by the name changes, but where there are references to BANs will have to be changed by December 2005.

European law requires the use of rINNs for substances in medicines and this requirement is also reflected in UK legislation. Because public health concerns were expressed about the potential for medication errors to occur if certain names were changed, use of rINNs has not been strictly applied in the UK.

This approach, however, is not sustainable for the longer term. Other European Union member states routinely use rINNs, so products accepted on to the UK market from other member states use this naming system, as do medicines that have pan-European licences. This means that it is possible for the same substance to be found on the UK market with two different names. The MHRA believes that this poses an increased risk of medication errors.

Details of the planned change are available as a PDF file (85K). The list of name changes is available as a PDF file (140K).

  * PDF files on PJ Online require Acrobat Reader 4 or later