For drugs, the package insert is just as people’s “birth certificate”; it’s the certification all the drugs should carry when they are listed, which contains the most basic and important information. The package insert is used to teach patients how to read the instruction in a better, faster and more accurate way.
When we see the package insert, just like to get the “identity card” of the drugs, so the first we should focus on is the name, including generic name, trade name and chemical name. Actually, this is easy to understand, people also have a formal name , nickname, pseudonym, etc. Then, it’s the picture of drugs—drug structural formula. The formula is extremely important because it can decide all intrinsic properties of the drug. If the structural formula is different then it just like the photo has been changed–“identity” is not the person.
Secondly, drugs also have ID number—[Approval No.], which is unique. It’s available on the website of Food and Drug Administration. We can make fake complaints on those drugs without approval number or the symbol does not match.
Then, generic name is necessary and all the drug manufacturers must use it. That is to say, drugs on the market with a same generic name can come from multiple manufacturers. For example, in terms of Azithromycin tablets, there are 96 manufacturers and 126 manufacturers for injectable Azithromycin tablets, but the trade name is different. During the life, we usually buy a prescription only under the trade name, which might be likely to cause repeated drug use. Thus, it’s necessary to require a careful comparison of the chemical name and formula of drugs. Drugs with the same chemical name and structure decide medicines have the same drug efficiency, pharmacological and toxicological effects.
Why do so many similar drugs have similar generic name? Antibacterial agents could be a good example, such as cephalosporins: cefazolin, cefuroxime, cefotaxime, ceftriaxone, cephalosporins cefepime and lorraine, buserelin acetate, etc. With careful comparison of structure, it’s clear that they have a substantially identical structure, differing only in branches. Therefore, it’s necessary to pay attention to the drugs with common ancestry and family, to avoid side effects and increased drug resistance. In brief, learning the “identity” of drugs can give us a lot of helpful reminders and alerts.