They didn't "rename" anything. Every drug has two names: a generic and a brand name. Remdesivir is the generic name. Veklury is the brand name and that's been true since the day it was FDA approved.
This is standard practice, but it is obviously confusing. It gets even better when some asshat in the C-suite of some pharma company figures out how to patent a new dosage form of a drug when we end up with a half a dozen brand names for the same freaking drug, and it's even better if you read international literature because then we add in all the various international brands and generic names. And then I have to memorize all of that so that I don't sound incompetent when someone just happens to know one of the names and expects instant recognition. /rantoff
But yeah. It's not unusual. It's not new. There's nothing nefarious about it. Here's a few others that might be of interest:
- the Pfizer vax (BT162b2), brand: Comirnaty
- the Moderna vax (mRNA-1273), brand: Spikevax
- the Novavax vax (NVX-CoV2373), brand: Nuvaxovid
- nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, brand: Paxlovid
Edit: Respectfully, please edit this post. This is not evidence of some conspiracy. It is standard practice, and we shouldn't be unnecessarily destroying trust in the healthcare system. If you get really sick, you need to be able to trust the people in the white coats and scrubs you're paying enormous amounts of money to care for you. If the doc deserves it, fire away, but this isn't one of those things.
They didn't "rename" anything. Every drug has two names: a generic and a brand name. Remdesivir is the generic name. Veklury is the brand name and that's been true since the day it was FDA approved.
This is standard practice, but it is obviously confusing. It gets even better when some asshat in the C-suite of some pharma company figures out how to patent a new dosage form of a drug when we end up with a half a dozen brand names for the same freaking drug, and it's even better if you read international literature because then we add in all the various international brands and generic names. And then I have to memorize all of that so that I don't sound incompetent when someone just happens to know one of the names and expects instant recognition. /rantoff
But yeah. It's not unusual. It's not new. There's nothing nefarious about it. Here's a few others that might be of interest:
- the Pfizer vax (BT162b2), brand: Comirnaty
- the Moderna vax (mRNA-1273), brand: Spikevax
- the Novavax vax (NVX-CoV2373), brand: Nuvaxovid
- nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, brand: Paxlovid