On June 6th, ASBM sent a letter to national health regulatory authorities in 20 countries. The letter explains the benefits of distinct names for biologic medicines and ask regulators in different countries to urge the World Health Organization (WHO) to make its Biological Qualifier (BQ) system available to countries who wish to extend its benefits to their patients.  

From the ASBM letter: 

ASBM believes that implementation of BQ suffixes is a global solution to the global problem of biologic naming and could potentially become a global system for pharmacovigilance for all biologic medicines and that it should be implemented before further proliferation of national naming schemes.  

ASBM urges (national regulator) to consider requesting that WHO make available the BQ suffix system for all approved biologic medicines as part of a worldwide effort to ensure robust pharmacovigilance through distinguishable naming.  

Letters were sent to the national regulatory agencies of: Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates.

Read more about the BQ Proposal here.