Why Monoclonal Antibody Drugs Have Such Weird Names
How to decode the generic names of antibody drugs
Antibody drugs are made up of protein molecules that can target a specific receptor on their target cells. In cancer for example, antibodies can be designed to target overexpressed proteins found on the surface of cancer cells. The ways they suppress cancer is varied but they all rely on the initial binding to specific surface proteins. Antibody drugs have some strange and awkward names, certainly for the generic forms of the drugs. Olaratumab, Adalimumab and nofetumomab are all names of antibody drugs. These names are strange because they actually contain information on the drug itself. In this article I want to show you what these names mean and how you can decode them.
Old system
The WHO has an internal team that is responsible for assigning these names, this is the International Non-proprietary Names or INN. They have recently simplified the way antibody drugs are named, but let’s take a look at the old nomenclature system before we look at the new one. The nomenclature of antibodies under the old naming scheme has a prefix, sub-stem A, sub-stem B and suffix. The prefix is variable, it can be anything as long as it distinguishes from other antibody drugs. Sub-stem A indicates the target of the antibody. I’ve…
