Hospital Pharmacist
2007;14:148
May 2007

News summary

Drug naming conventions explained

International non-proprietary names (INNs) should be useable in as many languages as possible and therefore should not contain the letters “ph” (“f” should be used instead), “h,” “k,” “ae,”or “oe”. This is among the information presented in a comment in The Lancet (2007;369:1326–8) that details how drugs are named.

The authors point out that, even when all the naming rules are complied with, adopting INNs can contribute to errors. For example, when British Approved Names were changed to INNs (as a result of a European Directive) mercaptamine (previously cysteamine) was confused with mercaptopurine, and levothyroxine (previously thyroxine) was confused with liothyronine.