Brand drugs may avoid "one size fits all" in the face of the trend of name change

[China Pharmaceutical network industry trends] recently, in order to further standardize the naming of Chinese patent medicines, the State Food and Drug Administration drafted the technical guidelines for naming generic names of Chinese patent medicines (Draft for comments) (hereinafter referred to as the guidelines) and solicited opinions from the public Four basic principles of naming traditional Chinese medicine are put forward in the guiding principles It is mentioned that, in general, Zhongcheng drugs are not named after people, place names or enterprise names, and it is also necessary to avoid using names of pharmacology and pathology that may give hints to patients (brand medicine faces the trend of name change or can avoid the "one size fits all" picture source: Baidu picture) the guiding principles put forward that, in addition to following the principle of "avoiding duplicate names", the names of Chinese patent medicines generally do not use the names of people, places and enterprises At the same time, the words "treasure", "spirit", "essence" and "quick effect" should not be used The guiding principles are not only applicable to the naming of new drugs, but also applicable to the non-standard naming of existing Chinese patent medicines As soon as the guiding principle was issued, it quickly triggered hot discussions in the industry, such as "the essence may not be called" and "Yunnan Baiyao may be renamed" However, in fact, a number of industry insiders told reporters that the "guiding principles" used several references such as "should not be" and "general", and gave a transitional period to the drug names that must be renamed, believing that the policy will not be "one size fits all" to all relevant drug names after the implementation 1 Four basic principles of naming traditional Chinese medicine are put forward in the guiding principles for more than 6000 drugs with the keyword of "on the list" It is mentioned that, in general, Zhongcheng drugs are not named after people, place names or enterprise names, and it is also necessary to avoid using names of pharmacology and pathology that may give hints to patients At the same time, exaggerated, boastful and unrealistic terms should not be used But "quick effect", "strong force", "essence", "treasure" and "anti-inflammatory" are listed as examples after this principle It is worth noting that the guiding principles are not only applicable to the naming of new Chinese medicine, but also to the naming of original Chinese patent medicine This means that once the new regulations are implemented, a group of drugs that consumers are already familiar with may need to be launched in a "new face" On January 15, according to incomplete statistics, the above keywords should not be used were input into the domestic drug (traditional Chinese Medicine) database of the State Food and drug administration, and there were as many as 6370 drug names - including 2750 drugs containing only "Ling" Why did the State Food and Drug Administration suddenly put forward such a guiding principle? "Before that, the state only made no repeated naming regulations on the names of Chinese patent medicines," said Shi lichen, founder of the third-party medical service system McConnell But at the same time, there are many irregular behaviors, such as the name of non purified products still contains "refined" and the effective time of quick acting products is difficult to determine This change of name is to reduce misleading consumers and regulate the market of Chinese patent medicine " At the same time, Shi lichen said that the CFDA's move is also a follow-up move under the background of stricter supervision of traditional Chinese medicine, following the release of white papers and laws on traditional Chinese medicine in China last year While not advocating some names, the guiding principles also advocates the organic combination of traditional cultural characteristics and drug names on the basis of clear literature basis or recognized cultural origin Some of the names have become the key praise objects of the guiding principles: "Yupingfeng", which refers to the human body's barrier against the outside world; and "Yuehua pill", which compares the effect of nourishing yin and moistening lung to the brilliance of the moon 2 Some enterprises plan and respond to this guiding principle Those who are good at it and those who are worried about it also have it The manufacturers of related drugs are among the latter It is understood that if a drug needs to be renamed, it needs to apply again Secondly, the packaging, description and label of the drug need to be changed accordingly, which not only causes cost burden, but also brings management pressure to production and quality inspection "A large-scale name change does bring some pressure to pharmaceutical companies, including new packaging, new marketing programs and re establishing awareness for consumers," a senior executive of a well-known pharmaceutical company in Southwest China told reporters He also said that since the General Administration of food and Drug Administration released the guiding principles last week, its company has started internal discussion, "what we need to do next is to feed back the demands of the enterprise to the relevant departments, and at the same time carry out market assessment and investigation, and do a good job of preparatory work." According to schlichen, the cost of changing packaging is not large "Large expenses appear in the sales stage after the name change of drugs Drug companies need to spend money to re establish their brands and cultivate consumer awareness For drug companies with large sales or brand advantages, this challenge is particularly difficult But for non brand medicine manufacturers, they can take advantage of the opportunity to change their names to seize the market " Mr Shi also revealed that some big manufacturers have begun to discuss countermeasures to display the former names of drugs in the form of labels during the transitional period or after the name change, so as to build consumer awareness However, the guiding principles are still in the stage of soliciting opinions, in which "general" has appeared several times In addition, for long-standing drug names, the guiding principles also clearly put forward that "if it is necessary to change, its former name can be listed as a transition" In this regard, the above-mentioned pharmaceutical executives said, "a proper period of transition will make the pressure of enterprises relatively gentle." Zou Kanglu, chairman of derrentang, also said that "the guiding principles have given drug manufacturers an adaptive process At present, most of the pharmaceutical companies I know are still in a transitional state of wait-and-see " According to Zou Kanglu, although there are many kinds of Chinese patent medicines involved in the name change, the drugs similar to Yunnan Baiyao and Angong Niuhuang Pill belong to the national secret formula, and the drugs with special status should not be renamed without hesitation He also believes that some drug names that have already formed brands and will not mislead consumers will not be "one size fits all" Yunnan Baiyao corresponds to the "necessary and reasonable" principle of the guiding principles: generally, it does not use the names of people, places and enterprises, nor the names of code names Fengyoujing corresponds to the second principle of the guiding principles, "avoid suggesting and exaggerating the efficacy": it should not use exaggerated, boastful and unrealistic terms Such as: "treasure", "spirit" essence "," strength "and" quick effect ".