New Antibody Names in 2024

In January 2022 new regulations were introduced to change the naming convention for monoclonal antibodies. Why change it? Well the naming convention for antibodies was already pretty complex and with the filing of more and more antibodies every year the options for naming using the existing conventions were running out.

There are 4 new stems that have been approved with -bart likely to be the most commonly used

-tug for unmodified immunoglobulins (Unmodified ImmunoGlobulins)

-bart for artificial antibodies (antiBody fragment ARTificial)

-mig for bi/multi specific immunoglobulins (Multi ImmunoGlobulins)

-ment for immunoglobiulin fragments  (fragMENT)

Over 120 new INNs using the -bart stem have already been published so it likely wont be long before we see the first approved -bart product.

Will this have an effect on pharma marketing? Well to be honest once a drug is approved more HCPs and patients refer to it by its brand name, which is unrelated to whether a drug is an antibody or some other form of agent. There may be some confusion among patients and HCPs at the beginning, but we don’t anticipate that it will have a major impact on brand recognition.  

1.      WHO Guidelines https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/inn-21-531