Press Room
50 News Stories
Introducing BI•Q™: Brand Institute’s Suite of AI-Powered Branding Solutions
Brand Institute, the global leader in pharmaceutical and healthcare-related brand name and identity development, today announced the launch of its new suite of AI-Powered Solutions under the umbrella brand BI•Q™.
May 21, 2025
Why Do Prescription Drugs Have Such Crazy Names?
How do brand-name drugs get these names? And why do they sound so … bizarre?
There is an intricate method to the madness—with safety at its core.
July 09, 2024
Drug Names: The machinations behind the monikers
Unveiling the hidden world of pharmaceutical nomenclature
June 18, 2024
What’s in a clinical trial name? Breaking it down with the Brand Institute, from the acronymic to the aspirational
Naming a new clinical trial represents a major marketing opportunity for drug and device makers, according to Brand Institute
May 14, 2024
Biotech naming trends bypass ‘buzzwords and business speak’ to build whimsical, memorable brands
As the #FierceMadness: The Best Biotech Name Tournament twisted and turned toward the final championship, it became clear that there’s more to the names of these companies.
April 16, 2024
The key to #FierceMadness victory for AZ and Ionis’ Wainua? Unique sounds and ‘phonetic appeal,’ per the Brand Institute
Wainua’s victory in this year’s Fierce Madness drug name tournament may seem at first glance like a product of subliminal messaging—you can’t spell Wainua without w-i-n, after all—but there’s plenty more at play in the name…
April 15, 2024
Brand drug naming faces challenges in emerging categories, expert says
As brand drug naming gets more difficult, some therapy areas like obesity and Alzheimer’s disease are facing even more challenges. That’s because both are traditionally more conservative categories when it comes to the kinds of names the FDA will allow.
January 2, 2024
The secret science of how drugs like Ozempic and Jardiance get their weird names
It can cost billions of dollars to develop a pharmaceutical, so promoting it is essential. And that all starts with the name.
December 7, 2023
Why did Lilly give tirzepatide a new name for obesity? Hint: It’s the marketing
Eli Lilly’s decision to give two distinctive brand names to tirzepatide, which is approved for type 2 diabetes and now chronic weight management, indicates just how differently the company plans to market both indications.
Last week it announced that its weight management version of the drug is called Zepbound, while the same drug is branded as Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes.
November 21, 2023
From Paxlovid to Spikevax: Inside the ‘intensive’ process of naming drugs
Scott Piergrossi’s informal motto is “you name it, we name it.” Yes, you read that correctly. He is the “chief namer” at the Brand Institute, a branding agency.
His team helps dream up names for more than 75% of all new drugs approved worldwide each year. That includes more than 2,000 brand name drugs, plus some 1,600 generic, or “nonproprietary,” drugs.
November 21, 2023
What Eli Lilly’s Zepbound reveals about the intricate process of naming drugs today
Whether you’re a fan of the drug name Zepbound or, like one X user, think it sounds like “an off brand bus line,” you’re likely to have some opinion about the new moniker for Eli Lilly’s blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro. The company announced the new name on Nov. 8 following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug for weight loss as well.
November 20, 2023
The Trajectory of the ‘Birth of a Brand Name’ That You Want to Experience
Reboot – Current Location of People Who Left Takeda Pharmaceutical, Akira Mori – Brand Institute President, Tokyo.
October 15, 2023
Elicio’s Broad Cancer-Vaccine Ambitions
Elicio Therapeutics CEO Robert Connelly joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Vanguards of Health Care podcast for a broad-ranging discussion about the company’s lymph node-targeting vaccine platform, their recent transition to the public markets, and their partnership with Brand Institute in the development of the Elicio brand name.
August 16, 2023
Drug Name Confusion: More Than 80 New Drug Pairs Added to the List
Zolpidem (Ambien) is a well-known sedative for sleep. Letairis (Ambrisentan) is a vasodilator for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension.
August 8, 2023
How drugmakers come up with evocative brand names like Viagra and Lunesta
There’s an art and a science to naming pharmaceutical drugs. Here’s what is embedded in the name on the label-and why… Read Article.
July 31, 2023
Name that Humira biosimilar: Inside the complicated process to brand the newest versions of AbbVie’s drug
Seven new drugs launched last week, all with resounding similarity — and all trying to capture a piece of the lucrative market for AbbVie’s Humira.
July 11, 2023
薬の名前はなぜヘン？ 工夫の結晶、その由来とルール
バイアグラ、ルネスタ、アドエア、パキロビッドなどの処方箋を受け取ったとき、薬の名前はなぜこんなに謎めいているのかと不思議に思った経験がある人もいるかもしれない。新薬の名前は、
May 31, 2023
How a drug gets its name
Pharma companies have to keep safety in mind when it comes to names, because if two drugs have names that sound too much alike, providers could easily mistake one for the other, Scott Piergrossi, president of creative at Brand Institute, a company that works with drugmakers to come up with brand names, told Healthcare Brew.
May 23, 2023
The iii’s have it! Sanofi’s fresh approval of hemophilia drug Altuviiio gets a new factor in drug naming
Sanofi and Brand Institute have raised the bar in drug naming with the audacious use of not one, not two, but three of the same letter in a row for its new hemophilia treatment.
Feb 27, 2023
Inside the Pharma Name Game: Drug Word Choice Key to Building a Lasting Identity
Branding agency experts share what to know when it comes to legal, regulatory, and creative approaches in the complex drug-naming process, with its potential to shape a campaign’s success.
Feb 9, 2023
‘V’ and ‘O’ the most common first and last letters of drug brands in 2022, but diversity reigns in new names
There were 37 new FDA approved drug names in 2022, and the Brand Institute (BI), a leading company that names drugs for biopharma clients, has seen a pattern emerge.
Jan 24, 2023
Eisai follows family ties with name for newly approved Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi
The road to approval for Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi began more than a decade ago when Eisai and Biogen collaborated on a first trial for what was then called BAN2401.
Jan 10, 2023
Eisai follows family ties with name for newly approved Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi
The road to approval for Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi began more than a decade ago when Eisai and Biogen collaborated on a first trial for what was then called BAN2401.
Jan 10, 2023
Clinical trial branding? Biotechs and pharmas migrate name and identity strategies even earlier.
Branding is moving more and more downstream into clinical trials. Biotech and pharma companies are thinking about drug brand product names and identities much sooner in the development process, but there’s also another trend brewing in early marketing strategies — clinical trial branding.
Dec 12, 2022
What happened to all the ‘good’ drug names? Inside the modern day dilemma of Rx naming
Prescription drug names often spark speculation, debates and sometimes derision, but they also stir curiosity.
Apr 12, 2022
Wherefore Tavneos? ChemoCentryx and the Brand Institute explain how the #FierceMadness winner got its name
For more than three weeks, 68 drug brands battled to be crowned your FierceMadness drug name tournament champion, and in the end, that honor went to ChemoCentryx, its autoimmune disease drug Tavneos and the Brand Institute.
Apr 12, 2022
ChemoCentryx’ Tavneos trounces BioMarin’s Voxzogo to win #FierceMadness drug name tournament championship
On paper, Tavneos and Voxzogo are evenly matched competitors,” said Scott Piergrossi , president of creative at the Brand Institute, which named both drugs.
Apr 6, 2022
#FierceMadness: BioMarin’s Voxzogo battles ChemoCentryx’ Tavneos for the championship
The Final Four round is now closed. Vote in the final round here until 6 p.m Tuesday to decide your winner.
Apr 4, 2022
Name a drug? A difficult art
Cominarty, Spikevax, Vaxzevria, Nuvaxovid or soon Vidprevtyn, so many different brand names to designate a vaccine against the same disease, covid-19.
Mar 29, 2022
What’s in a Name?
That which we call rosaimab by any other name would find regulatory approval and commercial success. Or would it?
Jan 21, 2022
You say Trintellix, I say Brintellix: Why a drug name in the US won’t always translate across the pond
As a British citizen living in England but writing on American drug names, I’m in a perfect position to know that many drugs approved in Europe and the U.K. can have very different names from those in the U.S.
Jan 21, 2022
What Covid-19 Vaccine Did You Get? You Probably Don’t Know Its Name.
Hundreds of millions of people have gotten the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc. Covid-19 vaccine shots.
Jan 09, 2022
AstraZeneca, Amgen tap Brand Institute in new naming twist for their freshly approved Tezspire
There’s certainly no shortage of respiratory drugs on the market. So, when it comes to naming a new brand, there’s extra pressure to be unique to stand out from a large pack while still hitting key linguistic connections.
Jan 6, 2022
The Pfizer vaccine’s full name is Comirnaty — a hectic mashup of COVID-19, community, immunity, and mRNA
Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine got full Food and Drug Administration approval on Monday — and the agency also approved the vaccine’s official name, Comirnaty, pronounced koe-mir-na-tee.
Jan 24, 2021
The curious alchemy of vaccine brands: when molecules and medicine mingle with rhyme and regulation
In April last year, Scott Piergrossi landed a high-profile contract he had to be dead secretive about.
Feb 10, 2021
Baystate Business: Vaccine Names (Correct)
As the Pfizer vaccine goes for full FDA approval, we could soon learn its official name. All approved drugs and vaccines must have a brand name for patient safety, intellectual property and marketing.
May 13, 2021
BioNTech Recognizes Employees and Partners for Their Support in Developing Historic Vaccine
BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) today wants to express its thanks and gratitude not only to its employees but also to the many partners who have assisted the company in successfully developing a vaccine for COVID-19.
Dec 31, 2020
‘I haven’t even told my wife’: Inside the frantic and secretive sprint to name the Covid-19 vaccines
The United States has a Covid-19 vaccine, the result of science carried out at breakneck speed.
Dec 15, 2020
Naming New Drugs: It’s Serious Business, Particularly in NJ
With two-thirds of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies based in New Jersey, agencies spend a lot of time here working out what to name drugs
Dec 15, 2019
What’s in a name? Plenty. It’s your brand.
“Your name should evoke what’s unique about your product,” said Scott Piergrossi, an executive at Brand Institute.”
Dec 4, 2019
„X steht für Macht“
Der Markenname ist ein entscheidender Faktor für den Erfolg eines Produkts. Das gilt auch für Arzneimittel. Scott Piergrossi vom Brand Institute unterstützt Pharmahersteller bei der Namensfindung. Der Prozess kann Monate dauern.
Mar 9, 2016
What’s in a biotech name? How drug startups choose their brand
Kendall Squared brings you dispatches from the world’s epicenter for biotechnology and drug discovery.
Mar 9, 2016
‘Creation engineering’: The art and science of naming drugs
Yearly lists of the “most popular baby names” show how tastes change over time.
Nov 25, 2016
What’s in a name? For drugs, a lot of Zs and Xs
Farxiga. Hetlioz. Otezla. Zykadia. No, these are not the names of distant planets visited by the starship Enterprise.
Apr 10, 2015
Medicine Names
Ever wondered how a drug gets its name? Some of the biggest pharmaceutical drugs in the world are named in Downtown Miami.
Apr 10, 2014
X and Z in favor as companies name new drugs
They may be difficult to pronounce, but pharmaceutical companies eager to grab the attention of doctors and patients are returning to drug names starting with X and Z.
Apr 10, 2014
NAMES, NAMES AND NAMES – NPR HOW TO DO EVERYTHING – EPISODE 53
How to: name your new hit pharmaceutical. Brand Institute’s Scott Piergrossi explains.
Apr 25, 2012
Name blame: Ever wonder where drugs get those silly sobriquets?
When a team of branding consultants set out to name Pfizer Inc.’s next-generation erectile dysfunction drug, they took a cautionary lesson from its predecessor.
Aug 9, 2010
Branding Biotech
When a judge ruled this summer that Advancis Pharmaceutical Corp. had to change its name because it was too similar to another company’s, it was a significant setback. But it offered a chance for the Germantown drugmaker to do better.
Dec 17, 2006
THE NEW FACE OF SMALL BUSINESS ”A tremendous shift to self-employment is under way,” observes one economist. Before you try it, prepare, prepare, prepare.
FOR DECADES, half the working population of America has been confiding a secret desire to drinking buddies and pollsters: to yank off that corporate uniform, deliver a crisp farewell to the boss, and go into business alone or with a friend.
May 2, 1994
Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association Virtual Round Tables
A New Era of
AI-Powered
Pharmaceutical
Naming
As President of Creative at Brand Institute, I’ve spent my career working at the intersection of creativity, science, and regulation—helping […]
An Analysis of the Brand Names for Novel Drugs Approved by FDA CDER in 2024
In 2024, there were 50 novel drugs approved by the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). Of those […]
Part 1: Unique and Unmistakable: Canada’s LASA Testing for Safer Drug Names
Medication errors with medicine giving are among the most avoidable dangers in health care, but they still threaten patient safety […]
Social Media