What’s in a name?

Drugs 101—pay attention, there will be a test later
 

There are many Prostate Cancer medications in current use (and approved by the FDA). New ones are approved as older ones become less effective and disappear. Part of the formula has to do with money. No drug manufacturer wants to produce and market a drug that won’t make a profit for them. After the patent runs out—usually 17 years from the date it went into effect‑‑the drug becomes generic and can be manufactured by just about anybody and will almost certainly be less expensive.

If you’re taking a prostate cancer drug you probably know its name (at least one of them). But did you know that every drug has three or more names? The name you know is probably the brand name. It also has a generic name, and a chemical name or formula, mostly impossible to understand. Sometimes the chemical name is abbreviated during the Clinical Trials stage, something like FUN-4U.For example, I take Zytiga, the brand name of a drug manufactured by Johnson & Johnson (aka Janssen). The generic name of the drug is abiraterone acetate, assigned by the FDA when it was approved, and the chemical formula is 3β-Acetoxy-17-(3-pyridyl)-androsta-5,16-diene. When a drug finally becomes available in generic form it may have yet more names. Confused yet?

You can find the names and history of your drug or drugs at the NIH prostate cancer drug site. You might discover that there is a much less expensive generic version of your brand name prescription drug. That is good. Generic drugs are required by the FDA to be exactly the same as the original brand name drug. Another personal example of this—I take prednisone along with my Zytiga. The prednisone, a generic drug, costs pennies a month. The Zytiga, a brand name drug, costs many thousands a month (before my Medicare Part D kicks in and reduces it to just many thousands a year).

Some men who need these very expensive drugs are not rich or do not have a health insurance plan that helps enough. This is also true of drugs for other cancers and many other medical conditions for both men and women. Sadly, life-saving treatment for some still depends on their ability to pay.

Oh, there is no test, you passed by just reading this far so you can relax.

axman