Dusildenafil citrateau Viagra® ou l’art délicat de nommer les médicaments

Abstract

In times past, drugs often derived from plants and were quite naturally named after them. Nowadays, considering the significant economic issues at stake (Dutchen 2009), pharmaceutical companies increasingly entrust brand agencies with the naming of their products (Kenagy 2001). In this article, we offer to analyze the names of some brand and generic drugs, exploiting the French VIDAL dictionary, the British National Formulary and the US FDA corpora, with the aim to bring to light the evolution of lexical trends over the last century. Whilst doing so, we wish to demonstrate that, in the field of pharmacology, the process of naming is nowadays not so much underlain by a legitimate need for clarity and scientificity but rather by marketing strategies some of which prove to be misleading for patients. Considering the now international dimension of the pharmaceutical industry, drug names are often the same around the world. Yet, there are exceptions, which we point out and explain. Furthermore, we deemed interesting to underline the extent to which medicines are part of our everyday life by pointing out nicknames that patients tend to give to their treatmentsusually sedatives, neuroleptics and the like -and metaphors they may resort to in English and in French. We conclude with the acknowledgement that medicines are henceforth like any other goods, whose financial stakes are such that, besides developing forceful new names, the pharmaceutical industry goes so far as inventing new diseases (disease mongering) to increase its market share (Even and Debré 2012).

Euphemism as a core feature of patientese: A comparative study between English and French

“…Drugs such as anxiolytics and antidepressants may also be shortened and nicknamed: seckies (Seconal®), vals (Valium®), nembies (Nembutal®), mandies (Mandrax®), tuinies (Tuinal®), and mogies (Mogadon®) in English. This strategy may well reflect how comfortable patients feel with these drugs (Faure 2014). Another example is the contraceptive pill: the pill in English and la pilule in French, in which we observe a thematizing process 8 with the use of the definite article in both languages.…”

“…Based on this "medicalese = seriousness" process, the pharmaceutical industry "sells" new diseases, some of which are only newly medicalized but long-acknowledged ailments: e.g. "disruptive mood dysregulation disorder", which, according to a number of psychiatrists, 5 simply describes childhood tantrums, a trend named "disease mongering" (Faure 2014).…”

Natesto®. What Else? New Trends in Drug Naming

“…We suspect the sponsors and branding institutes of borrowing from Western culture and more precisely from television series (Faure 2014) with Tudorza ® , a drug for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (from The Tudors), and Alecensa ® (from Sansa in Game of Thrones); from literature with Oxtellar ® (an antiepileptic), which reminds us of Othello, and Odefsey ® , a treatment of HIV-1, which sounds like "odyssey"; from mythology with Xartemis ® (a painkiller), Varithena ® , which sounds like Athena, a treatment of varicose veins, and Elelyso ® whose name sounds like "Elysium".…”

Untitled

“…Linguists have also off ered in-depth terminological studies -names of diseases, instruments, medicines, etc. (Faure 2014;Norri 2004;Sylwanowicz 2007, among others) -or thorough analyses of patients' discourse (cf. Faure 2015).…”