On October 18th, in Geneva, Switzerland, ASBM President Doug Badger and Advisory Board Chair Philip Schneider, MS, FASHP participated in the World Health Organization’s 63rd Stakeholder Consultation on International Nonproprietary Names.

The subject of the INN meeting is the continued development of the INN Programme’s Biologic Qualifier (BQ) proposal. The is a modification to the INN system designed to ensure clear product identification between biosimilars and their reference product by means of a four-letter distinguishing suffix appended to a common root name.  This is the eighth INN Consultation at which ASBM has shared its perspectives with the INN Expert Group.
As a condition of participation, ASBM was asked by the WHO to refrain from discussing details about the meeting until the Executive Summary is made available to the public in the coming months.

The Executive Summary from the 62nd INN Consultation, held on April 12th, may be viewed here, and ASBM’s presentation from that meeting may be viewed here.