Chinese Names and Drug Company Pens

After perusing the list of Chinese medallists and athletes in the current Olympics I noticed a common bond. With names like: Meng Yan, Liu Xiang, Zhou Chunxiu, Zhang Xiangxiang, Zhu Qinan, Zhang Juanjuan, Zhang Lin, Xue Haifeng, Xu Yan and Zhang Yingying something was very clear. I don’t speak a lick of Chinese, so maybe this is where a severe gap of knowledge exists, but apparently people there REALLY like using letters that are obscure in English, particularly q, x, v, z and y. Not to mention that the whole U after Q thing clearly doesn’t apply in Chinese. Plus the name “Zhang” is much more popular than I ever imagined.

A similar trend exists in medicine, not the Zhang Phenomenon, however. Many drugs that came out a few years ago (when I finished med school and subsequently residency) used these same letters. If you’re not in health care this list might not make too much sense to you…. But I’m gonna try it anyway, ok?

Zosyn, Buspar, Ziprasadone, Quetiapine, Valsartan, Seroquel, Xanax, Paroxetine, Fluvox, Mirtazipine, Zyban, Flagyl, Xigris, Zolpidem, Valtrex, Zelnorm, Vytorin, Xopenex, Zetia (officially Ezetimibe), Quinupristin (also known as Synercid, and don’t forget Cubicin/Daptomycin!). Shit… That was just off of recent memory and I haven’t been a ‘real doctor’ in a year! If you aren’t at all involved in the field of medicine, these are somewhat common drugs that a lot of MDs use every day. Certainly you’ve heard of a “Z-pack”, right?

I did find this one, essentially dumbed down article about the fashion in which drug companies choose the names of the products, and why they favor unusual consonants. Here is this article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2007-10-07-drug-names_N.htm

This basically useless article has such great quotes as, “Then there's Viagra, the erectile-dysfunction drug made by Pfizer. It uses the prefix "vi" to suggest vigor and vitality. The word rhymes with Niagara, suggesting a mighty flow.” I always liked my name for an ED drug, Mydixadryl, whose clarity seems needed now more than ever.

Disappointingly I don’t know the answer to this question of Chinese first names and the penchants for big drug companies to use the same letters with an uncommon frequency. I do have many friends that are Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and even Taiwanese. I don’t think many of these people are language scholars, or are fluent in the language that represents their ancestry.

So if you’re one my friends with a marketing degree, an Asian heritage or are just much, much smarter than me, please enlighten me as to the reason for this trend. I could be totally off mark here, but it seemed like an interesting enough coincidence. Even if that is the case, I’d like to hear from you. So email me or contact me on Facebook. Don’t obsequiously recycle quietly expired Xeroxes of quixotic vitriol that has slowly zwiterred over the yrs. Be original. You’ll sleep better, believe me. Even without the Zolpidem.