OT: Pharmaceutical Joke (Hilarious)

I am reminded of the motto of The National Lampoon:

Good Taste Isn't Everything

(Who makes up drug names anyhow?)

The drug company who owns the patent is free to call it whatever they like pretty much. But drugs have several names. There's the proprietory name (Tricoxagin in this example) then there's the generic name, which will be less 'popular' and recognizable. For example, Prozac (proprietory) is also fluoxetine IIRC. Then there's the chemical names of which there are at least three or four variants.Those describe the precise molecule itself with zero ambiguity. Lyrica, sold by Pfizer under that name is also pregabalin and it's prime chemical name can be 3-Isobutyl-GABA, or (S)-3-Isobutyl-aminobutyric acid, or IsobutylGABA (among others!)

The variants typically sacrifice precision for brevity.

There is a standard for chemical naming which nails down the structure and distinguishes optical isomers. For organic chemicals the names can be remarkably long. Even butane has two structural isomers - there's a straight chain isomer and methyl-propane with three methyl group and one hydrogen atom attached to a central carbon atom.

Diamond, graphite and the buckmeister-fullerine are all isomers of carbon but the structural differences are important.