The nomenclature of International Nonproprietary Names (World Health Organization INN) for monoclonal antibodies is evolving.
A revised system was approved at the end of last year.
As explained in the paper by Guimaraes Koch & al. in their informative paper*:
- all pharmacological substances that contained an immunoglobulinvariable domain were coined with the stem -mab
- the number of INN with the stem -mab increased dramatically in the last years reaching 879 at the time of publication (2022)
- it therefore became difficult to find new – distinguishable – INN, so the WHO INN Expert Group decided to revise the system
- the radical decision was made to discontinue the use of the well-known stem -mab in naming new antibody-based drugs and going forward, to replace it with four new stems: -tug, -bart, -mig, and -ment
That’s how the names of the future “babies“ of the scientific community will look and sound like.
Are you involved in R&D on antibodies ?
Are you planning to screen different protein variants?
We at Magellan Biologics & Consulting proudly support the scientificcommunity in their R&D projects through our CHO4Tx® product portfolio that allows in-house, fast, easy and efficient transient protein expression in CHO cells and through personalized advices and consultancies.
