Zostavax

Pharmaceutical Naming for Merck
Meeting the FDA’s myriad requirements for pharmaceutical naming (while retaining a mg of marketing appeal) is always tough. That’s why most pharmaceutical names resemble Slavic gods (like Ipabog or Krsnik). For Merck’s shingles vaccine, we loved Zostavax (from “vaccine” and “Herpes Zoster,” the name for shingles). It was meaningful, easy to say, and—hold on to your pill fob—had only one set of adjacent consonants.