On October 18th, ASBM participated in the World Health Organization’s 75th Consultation on International Non-proprietary Names (INN) for Pharmaceutical Substances, held in Geneva, Switzerland. This was the nineteenth INN Consultation in which ASBM has participated. ASBM was represented by Executive Director Michael Reilly, Esq., and Advisory Board Chair Philip Schneider, MS, FASHP.

The proceedings at the Consultation are bound by confidentiality pending the WHO’s publication of the Executive Summary. ASBM will share the Executive Summary when it is published in the coming months.

From the WHO’s Executive Summary of the 74th INN Consultation, at which ASBM presented in April 2022:

ASBM noted that it was a decade ago that the WHO recognised the need to improve biological PV and that a WHO survey in 2020 found that the lack of an international standard remains an issue of concern that can lead to PV problems. Several early supporters of universal distinct naming have gone their own way due to lack of WHO action, but have expressed willingness to harmonize should the WHO act. ASBM will continue to work with regulators worldwide to move a global nomenclature policy forward…The Chair added that the Expert Group is looking at how to progress naming for these biologics and that the concept that was developed previously, viz., the biological qualifier (BQ), will be taken forward and discussed at WHO management level. Thus, the continued presence of ASBM at these sessions has not been in vain.

Read the WHO’s summary of the 74th INN Consultation here.