Danger Dust

Most drugs typically have three names: a chemical name, a generic name, and a brand name. Each serves a different purpose.

Generic drug names often incorporate stems or suffixes that denote the drug’s mechanism of action, chemical structure or target receptor, and a prefix that differentiates it from drugs in the same family.

This is why lots of drug names share the same ending. Examples include cholesterol medicines ending in -statin, Ace inhibitors for reducing blood pressure ending in -pril, monoclonal antibody drugs ending in -mab, and tyrosine kinase inhibitors (mainly used in cancer treatment) ending in -tinib.