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Scott Piergrossi, president of creative at Brand Institute, on the BioNTX “Inside Innovation” podcast. “Imagine creating a new English word that doesn’t sound like or look like another English word,” he said of the drug naming challenge. [Screenshot: “BioNTX Presents: Inside Innovation,” via YouTube]<\/p>\n
Scott Piergrossi
President, Creative
Brand Institute
\u2026 on the BioNTX \u201cInside Innovation\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n
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For biotech startups racing toward FDA approval, one step tends to get pushed to the back of the line: the name. That step tends to catch companies off guard, according to the team at Brand Institute.<\/p>\n
In a recent episode<\/a> of BioNTX\u2019s \u201cInside Innovation\u201d podcast, three Brand Institute leaders laid out why drug naming isn\u2019t a branding exercise. It\u2019s a regulated, global, and high-stakes process that can make or break commercialization timelines.<\/p>\n Most products can be trademarked and taken to market. Not pharmaceuticals. A drug name must clear review by the FDA, European Medicines Agency, Health Canada, and other agencies before it goes anywhere.<\/p>\n That makes the process uniquely constrained, according to Brand Institute\u2019s Scott Piergrossi. A name can\u2019t sound like or look like another drug. And if you\u2019re going global, the screening list is enormous. \u201cWe\u2019re talking over 200,000 names we\u2019re screening against,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s more words than there are in the English language. So imagine creating a new English word that doesn\u2019t sound like or look like another English word.\u201d<\/p>\n Names also can\u2019t be promotional \u2014 no overstating efficacy, no painting \u201ctoo fanciful of a picture,\u201d as Piergrossi put it. The result is what he calls \u201cvery suggestive coined names\u201d \u2014 invented words where \u201cI see something in there, but it\u2019s not overstating it.\u201d<\/p>\n Founders wait too long<\/p>\n \u201cStart early\u201d came up repeatedly, and it didn\u2019t sound like filler.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re dealing with a pharmaceutical, it\u2019s start early, keep it often, and think about your global strategy from the beginning,\u201d said Brian Frasca, divisional president at Brand Institute. The risk of waiting, he said, is ending up in a scramble right when a company is preparing for approval.<\/p>\n Jack Stohlquist, vice president of brand development in the firm\u2019s Dallas office, put it bluntly: early-stage biotechs \u201cthink they\u2019re going to wait to the last second\u201d to start naming \u2014 \u201cwhen in reality it\u2019s a much longer process.\u201d The cost of starting early is relatively low, he said. The cost of starting late is not.<\/p>\n The science behind naming<\/p>\n In biotech, even the name is part of the science, and the process is more computational than most founders expect. <\/p>\n Brand Institute screens candidates against that massive database of existing names using proprietary tools, including one called Brand Reality Max developed by its Drug Safety Institute subsidiary. Frasca said the team expanded an FDA algorithm for phonetic and orthographic analysis to cover seven languages. Then a separate linguistics panel evaluates names across 41 languages and dialects.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just about whether a name works in English. Frasca described scenarios where a name that tested well in the U.S. carried negative connotations in Portuguese or didn\u2019t translate in a French-speaking Canadian market. \u201cYou have to think about it early,\u201d he said, \u201cbut you also have to give yourself flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n Why it matters beyond branding<\/p>\n Piergrossi noted that naming stakes go beyond timelines and trademarks. It\u2019s humbling: \u201cSometimes when I step back, and I think about the relationship that patients have with the products we name,\u201d he said, \u201cin many cases they are putting their life, their trust into this product to deliver\u2026 and the brand plays a role in how they relate to that brand.\u201d<\/p>\n The podcast<\/p>\n The conversation comes from\u00a0 \u201cBioNTX Presents: Inside Innovation,\u201d a newish podcast series hosted by BioNTX Chief Communications Officer Eric B. Moore. The series profiles players and processes across North Texas life sciences \u2014 from biomanufacturing logistics to biosecurity to startup development. Nine episodes have dropped so far.<\/p>\n Find all the episodes on BioNTX\u2019s YouTube channel here<\/a>.<\/p>\n