Preferred Name

Drugs containing the same active ingredient(s) are referred to by Preferred name – the international non-proprietary name (INN) in English for single ingredient drugs (or other approved name, if there is no INN). For multiple ingredient drugs, the Preferred name is the first reported drug name of a given combination.

N Single ingredient drug non-proprietary name
T Single ingredient drug proprietary name
K Single ingredient drug chemical name
R Single ingredient drug code number
M Multiple ingredient drug proprietary name
X Multiple ingredient drug non-proprietary name
U Non-specific name, from ATC texts (such as NSAID or benzodiazepine)

Weber Effect in PV

“Weber Effect”: The peak reporting for events in a drug on market occurs within the first 2 years of approval (Hartnell, & Wilson, 2004) during the initial 5 year marketing period.

Dr J. C. P. Weber plotted the mean number of ADR reports for seven non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) over the first 5 years of marketing and showed that they peaked at 2 years and then declined rapidly. This has been called the Weber curve (Weber, 1984). It cannot be presumed that it will apply in all circumstances; but it did apply to antiinfective, endocrine, pulmonary and cardiovascular drugs (Brodovicz et al., 2001).When 10 drugs on the French market, which gave rise to approximately 100 spontaneous reports each during the first 4 years of marketing, were examined the reports peaked at 1 year and then decreased