USAN Council Meeting Summaries
United States Adopted Names Council
Meeting Summary
Friday, July 17, 2009
American Medical Association
Chicago, Ill.
The summer, 2009 meeting of the United States Adopted Names (USAN) Council was held Friday, July 17, 2009 at the American Medical Association in Chicago, Illinois. The topics discussed at this meeting included general USAN activities and policies, issues relating to drug nomenclature and name requests.
The members of the USAN Council were in attendance, as well as the members of the USAN Program staff housed at the American Medical Association (AMA). Additional observers were present from the AMA, United States Pharmacopeia (USP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Nonproprietary Name (INN) Program.
The following items were discussed:
USAN activities
Negotiation statistics showed a steady flow and slight rise in new submissions.
USAN Program activities discussed included continued active support of tall-man lettering, presentations to AMA leadership, and aggressive action taken to combat use of trademarks in nonproprietary naming.
USAN negotiations
39 negotiations were discussed: three INN revisions, six biologics, 14 multiple round and 16 new negotiations
WHO-INN nomenclature and USAN-sponsored applications
USAN sponsored 45 percent of the new INN applications discussed (25 USAN-sponsored applications) and there were seven cases of minor changes to USAN Council-recommended names.
USAN policy
Stems: seven new stems were presented at the meeting and seven new stems were approved by the Council
Radicals and anions list updates: four approved
Contact lens application revision discussed
Prodrug naming discussed
USAN Web site
Approximately 9000 hits per month; average time viewed and form download percentages discussed
Medication error issues
Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Medication Errors Reporting Program covering November, 2008 - April, 2009 briefly discussed. Cumulative data since May 1, 2002 was also provided to Council.
