International Nonproprietary Name

The World Health Organization has a constitutional mandate to 'develop, establish and promote international standards with respect to biological, pharmaceutical and similar products'.WHOThe international nonproprietary name (INN) is an official generic and non-proprietary name given to a pharmaceutical drug or an active ingredient. INNs make communication more precise by providing a unique standard name for each active ingredient, to avoid prescribing errors. The INN system has been coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1953.Drugs from the same therapeutic or chemical class are usually given names with the same stem. Stems are mostly placed word-finally, but in some cases word-initial stems are used. They are collected in a publication informally known as the Stem Book.Many drugs are supplied as salts, with a cation and an anion. The way the INN system handles these is explained by the WHO at its 'Guidance on INN' webpage. For example, amfetamine and oxacillin are INNs, whereas various salts of these compounds – e.g., amfetamine sulfate and oxacillin sodium – are modified INNs (INNM).Several countries had created their own nonproprietary naming system before the INN was created, and in many cases, the names created under the old systems continue to be used in those countries. As one example, in English the INN name for a common painkiller is paracetamol; the table below gives the alternative names for this in different systems: