Sean Cole

You've heard of Prilosec?

It's a better name, I think.

Yeah.

Problem being that then Prilosec started to become confused with Prozac.

True story.

That's right.

Also to point out, with the Lasix and LOSIC example, the doctor had written a prescription by hand, so it was a visual mix-up, which namers try to avoid by honing in on the physical shape of the name.

It has to have ascending and descending letters?

Describe this, the silhouette of a name.

So if you picture like a city skyline reflected in a river, you can think of that's what the name looks like, right?

They're skyscrapers and they're little low warehouses.

And these are all built out of lowercase letters.

Now, strictly speaking, there are names that get through without sticky up, sticky down letters.

But it is true that variation helps a lot in terms of approval.

Which, when you think about it, is another huge reason why the names are so kooky.

If you want a cuss sound, sure, you could use a lowercase c there.

But you could also use a lowercase q, which has the tail that sticks down.

Or instead of the letter I, you could use a lowercase Y. Scott really likes a lowercase Y. Y is the only vowel that has a visually differentiating quality to it.

Yes, and that name was approved last year also.

So putting this all together, again, no big claims, no lookalike, soundalike names, stricter enforcement of those rules, which means the goal now is to come up with something completely novel in an age where there are more and more new drugs coming out all the time.