Drug names

[pat]

I am always amused by the attempts by pharmaceutical companies (although all companies do it) to market via product name. This has given us the anti-anxiety drug Paxil as well as the antidepressants called Elavil, Zoloft, and Wellbutrin (which I always thought took the cake for suggestive drug names) to name a few. But I have just found a new marketing champion:

A new drug used as an anti-psychotic for schizophrenics, and a mood-stabilizer for bipolar individuals: Abilify.

Comments

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

One of the early Saturday Night Live commercial parodies was for a product called "Damitol." I keep waiting to see a DrugCo try to run that one.

The trick is to come up with names that sound like real words but aren't so the company can trademark them.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I remember "Damitol"! It was the take off on the Geritol commercial, and I think it ran on the first SNL. One of my very few pop-culture memories of that era was watching that with my sister, and when the spot was over turning to each other and saying "What the hell was that?"

Of course, the one that really sticks in memory is the Bass-o-matic.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Given what you know of my sense of humor, it should not surprise you to know that I used to be able to recite the Bass-o-matic commercial from memory.

It's a Floor Wax! It's a Dessert Topping!

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

No, that does not surprise me in the least. : > And I can just hear you saying "...Jane, you ignorant slut."

[cheshyre]

Wasn't Damitol one of the villains in that atrocious D&D movie a couple years back?

If you're interested, the New York Times had a recent article on how drugs get named.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! That was interesting... and scary, too.