SherlockMS and the Murders in the Medicine Cabinet

It is a crime committed thousands of times a day on prescription pads, right under the noses of the finest physicians in the land. And yet no one notices.

I call it: The Case of the Stolen Meaning and the Phonetic Crime.

The Crime: A Linguistic Murder

It all began when a prescription landed before my eyes. On it stood a name so devoid of poetry, so free of any sense, that it offended my highly developed neurological center for aesthetics: Myqorzo.

My first thought: is this a medicine or the final boss from one of those new video games today’s youth plays?
A glance at the latest approval lists of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) revealed the full scale of the catastrophe: Itovebi, Ogsiveo, Vyjuvek, Tivdak.

This was no coincidence. This was systematic slaughter. A massacre of meaning, an organized murder of our language. The weapon: the three-syllable fantasy name.

The Investigation: The Trail of 2,000 Names

I knew at once: this was no crime of passion. This was organized crime. I began my investigation at the crime scene itself, the licensing authority, the self-appointed “name police.” There I found their guideline: a 27-page manifesto of bureaucracy whose core message is: A name must not lead to confusion, neither when written nor when spoken. A noble aim. But how is it enforced?

My inquiries led me to the naming agencies; the pharmaceutical industry’s secret weapons labs. And there I discovered the pipeline of horror, the “2000→2 trail”:

1. Phase 1: Around 2,000 names are dreamed up by creative minds.
2. Phase 2: Lawyers sift them down until only 500 remain.
3. Phase 3: Linguists check for embarrassing meanings in Swahili or Mandarin until just 50 are still in the running.
4. Phase 4: In the end, 2 to 3 names are submitted to the EMA, so thoroughly pressed through the filter of harmlessness that they have lost every trace of character.

I imagine an enormous wastebasket in these agencies, brimming with discarded genius! Names like “NeuroBoom,” “Axonator,” or “Remyelin.” Names with punch, with poetry! This wasn’t mere tidying up; this was a cover-up.

The Second Identity: The Perpetrator’s True Name

But like every master criminal, every medication has a second identity, a true name it cannot conceal: the International Nonproprietary Name (INN). A brilliant system devised by the WHO, a code that only a superior mind such as mine can read.

From the suffix I recognize the culprit as if by fingerprint:

• Ends in -ase? An enzyme! 🧪
• Ends in -vir? An antiviral! 🦠
• Ends in -tinib? Ah, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor! The perpetrator comes from the kinase corner!

And then the bonus plot: the “Mab Murder.” For years, therapeutic antibodies ended in -mab. But sheer numbers forced the WHO to change the system; four new endings were introduced. Someone “recoded” the suffix system; not out of malice, but out of sheer necessity. Fascinating!

My Deduction: No Single Culprit—Only an Eternal Conflict

I look back at the classics, the luminaries of naming:

• Ritalin: named after “Rita,” the chemist’s wife, who tested it. A human story!
• Aspirin: a chemical triad: A for acetyl group, -spir- for spiraeic acid. That was poetry!
• Veronal: allegedly named after Verona, where the inventor, having taken the substance, slept so deeply on a train journey that he woke up there. A criminally charming origin!

And today? Myqorzo.

The case is clear. There is no single villain. It is the eternal tension between two mighty forces:

1. The Spirit of Marketing: it wants a shiny, unforgettable brand name.
2. The Spirit of Patient Safety: it wants to prevent mix-ups at any cost.

Who wins this whodunit? All too often: a bland compromise.

The Verdict: The Real Guilty Party Unmasked!

I lean back in my chair. The solution is, as always, elegantly simple. The true culprit, the invisible power that decides the fate of a name, that provokes near-mix-ups in the pharmacy and drives me to intellectual heights, is neither a person nor an agency.

The true perpetrator, my friend, is called… Phonetics.

Yours, SherlockMS