Powerful brand names for pharmaceutical products are important tools to offset competitive pressure from generics and to build customer loyalty. Brand naming for a pharmaceutical product is unique, as it is not only affected by marketing decisions, but also heavily regulated by state legislations.
From a marketing perspective, brand naming for a pharmaceutical product may take into consideration aspects such as the chemical/biological nature of its active ingredient, composition/formulation, therapeutic indication, associated medical condition, benefit, and adherence to the corporate identity. From a communication point of view, pharmaceutical branding specialists sometimes exploit the flexibility to emphasize either prescribing physicians or patients, in which case they must decide whether to focus on the functionality or the end-user benefits. It is also from the same angle that pharmaceutical naming is usually considered of great complexity, as most of the time, both audiences should be targeted.
However, Chinese regulations on pharmaceutical drug naming frown upon utilization of characters that are either indicative of curative effect, intended use, target audience or may imply efficacy.
Large quantities of information on prescription drugs marketed in China by major multinational pharmaceutical companies is firstly collected and compiled. The following hidden rules are observed:
1.Phonetic resemblance, particularly of the first character of the Chinese name, is the industry naming norm.
For example, the immuno-suppressant Imuran (GSK è‘Šå…˚çˊ
