Regeneron Pharmaceuticals registers over 100 typos for a new drug name.
Names of prescription drugs can be difficult to spell, with names like Aciphex, Juxtapid and Xenazine. Drug names put Silicon Valley’s latest vowel-less startups to shame.
So when a company gets ready to launch a new drug, how many typos of the drug name should it register as domain names?
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is getting ready to launch a new drug, and yesterday it registered over 100 typos of the drug name.
I actually don’t know what the correct spelling is, but it seems that the drug will be pronounced something like do-pex-ee-int.
Here are some of the domains the company registered, which it also registered in .net and .org:
depixent.com
depixint.com
doopexant.com
doopexent.com
doopexint.com
doopixant.com
doopixent.com
dopexant.com
dopexent.com
dopexint.com
dopiexent.com
dopixant.com
dopixent.com
dragonbooth.com
duepexent.com
duepexint.com
duepixant.com
duepixent.com
duepixint.com
duopexant.com
duopexent.com
duopexint.com
duopixant.com
duopixent.com
duopixint.com
dupexent.com
dupexiant.com
dupexient.com
dupexint.com
dupicksant.com
dupicksent.com
dupicksint.com
dupicsent.com
dupiscant.com
dupiscint.com
dupixan.com
dupixen.com
dupixiant.com
dupixient.com
dupixin.com
dupixint.com
duprixant.com
duprixent.com
duprixint.com
john says
Likely just CYA moneymaker for marketing/ad agency of record. Securing IP is required and missing a typo that shows up in use(abuse) someday is a hangable offense….only $10 for insurance is a good deal.
Likely used a typo generator, too….easy work.
Krishna says
Really interesting.
Yesterday, two struggling Indian start-ups merged and new company name is Runnr (without “e”)
Why these start-ups bet on such names? Is it fashionable to name a business with spelling mistakes?
Joseph Peterson says
Pharmaceutical names are, in effect, mandated to be bad. Regulators are on the lookout for look-alike / sound-alike (LASA) names. And it’s not hard to understand why. Prescription errors can kill people.
Pharmaceutical companies want (1) not to kill people, (2) not to get sued for killing people, and (3) not to see their drug application tied up by regulators who are afraid it will kill people.
So a pharmaceutical company wanting to push its drug through the approval process will seek out deliberately weird names. In theory, the more bizarre a name is, the farther removed it is from all other drug names. Aciphex, Myrbetriq, Juxtapid, etc. are all strange. But they’re all DIFFERENTLY strange.
Domain typos also offer an important kind of protection. Given the high cost of pharmaceuticals, unauthorized people might try selling similarly-named cheaper drugs. Maybe they’d be fraudulently selling placebos or worse. And that might kill people. More likely, they’d be selling chemically identical generics, which undercut the pharmaceutical companies on price.
Either way, those companies stand to lose a lot of money. So brand protection is especially advisable in the pharmaceutical industry.
James says
Sanofi Biotchnology
DUPIXENT – Trademark Details
Serial Number 86807623
Word Mark DUPIXENT
Status 681 – Publication/Issue Review Complete
Status Date 2016-02-25
Filing Date 2015-11-03
C.S. Watch says
DUPIXENT? I need an antidepressent.
Regeneron registered DUPIXANT.COM in Jan. ’16. I thought that was the brand. PIX and ENT (movies and entertainment)…adjacent in one brand name…for pharma?
Sanofi is French, so somebody on board knows that this name can read as ‘some visual entertainment’ in France. If that’s a subliminal, it’s ill-suited to inflammatory bowel disease. Nobody needs to start hallucinating when they’re trying to find the WC sign.
No, Sir. Don’t like it. Muddy work.