Today I Use Pop Psychology To Analyze Drug Names

I don't remember a lot about college really. I remember my organic chemistry professor telling us that car tires are much better today because of the wonder of modern polymers. I remember Avogadro's number, 6 x 10 to the 23rd power, is the number of atoms in an element's atomic weight in grams. Many a time as graduation neared the question "what is the most common side effect of Drug X?" would produce a doe-eyed silent stare in the young drug nazi, but I remembered Avogadro's number long after it's moment of extremely limited use had faded into the dustbin of my academic history.

I also remember discussing in a pharmacy marketing class the topic of drug names. Not the boring generic names, which are picked by a chimpanzee throwing darts at a poster of the alphabet, but the snazzy, hip, we want to make you feel good about spending your food budget on this brand names. I remember the professor telling us that a drug company would spend in the six figures figuring out what to call a product, chasing the perfect combination of letters that would maximize sales without doing something like sounding like the Chinese phrase for "fuck your mother." He told us that "power letters" such as X and Z were the way to go, and the evidence at the time bore him out, as the free drug pens we were using in class would have been for manly-sounding, powerful names. Xanax, Zantac, Effexor, Zyprexa, Zyrtec, Xenical. These meds were gonna kick the ass of whatever ailed you.

It would seem times have changed. Here are a few names plucked from a list of new drugs approved by the FDA in 2006:

Atripla
Emtriva
Prezista
Opana
Oracea
Daytrana
Relenza
Amitiza
Ranexa
Boniva
Climara

And of course my personal favorite, Exubera, which I think is the Latin word for bong.

Our drug names have gone flaccid. Obviously, there's a focus group out there that has managed to convince Big Pharma that feminine sounding three or four syllable words that end with "A" are the way to go. The question is, why? I thought about it some and came up with a theory. The great thing about a theory is that you don't need a shred of evidence to support it. So here is my theory, which has yet to be proven wrong:

After 15 years of the press, usually in the business section and with the main angle being how much money it would cost the manufacturer, running stories about drugs such as Rezulin, Baycol, Bextra, Vioxx, Duract, Posicor, Propulsid, Tequin, Redux, and Seldane injuring and/or killing people and having to be pulled from the market, Big Pharma was worried that people might be starting to realize that prescription medicines could be dangerous. A newly-hired 25 year old marketer proposed that the way to solve this problem was to make the drugs less dangerous and was immediately given a new position cleaning up poop in the room where they keep the dart throwing chimpanzees. The current vice-president of international marketing of Big Pharma Inc, was the man who proposed dealing with dangerous chemicals by giving them less dangerous sounding names.

"Vioxx" = Scary. RUN!

"Atripla." What could something called Atripla possibly do to hurt you? Now hand over your $75 copay and feel safe......you are getting sleeeeeeepppppyyyyy...remember Atripla is your friend.....a good, trusted friend.......

I also think it might have something to do with Avogadro's number. I'll theorize some more and get back to you on that.