Nomenclature of therapies in inflammatory bowel disease: A journey through time and terminology

The expanding therapeutic landscape of inflammatory bowel disease has highlighted the need for clear and standardized drug nomenclature to support safe prescribing, pharmacovigilance, international communication, and patient understanding. The World Health Organization's international nonproprietary name system, established in 1953, assigns unique and informative names to medicines. However, the increasing number and diversity of monoclonal antibodies used in inflammatory bowel disease and Other Diseases have outgrown the capacity of the traditional -mab suffix to convey meaningful structural or functional distinctions. In 2021, the international nonproprietary name system was updated to introduce new suffixes, such as -tug, -bart, -ment, and -mig, that provide more precise information, although these remain unfamiliar to many clinicians. This narrative review explores how international drug naming conventions have evolved and have been applied within the context of inflammatory bowel disease, from early compounds to contemporary engineered therapies, and examines the rationale and clinical relevance of the updated naming framework. Drawing on historical and current literature, as well as policy documents from the World Health Organization's international nonproprietary name expert group, this review charts the development and successive reforms of the naming scheme. As inflammatory bowel disease therapies continue to diversify, understanding this evolving nomenclature is increasingly important for safe prescribing and effective communication.

Crohn’s disease; INN; inflammatory bowel disease; international nonproprietary name; monoclonal antibodies; ulcerative colitis.