19 March 1999 - drug name shortage

Leading pharmaceutical companies are secretly worried about an impending shortage of names for new drugs, the Daily Whale has learned. “The development pipeline runs faster every year,” explained a highly-placed informant. “We need official names for doctors and trade names for consumers, and there are only so many words as good as Mifepristone and Imipramine. Zyzytril will go into clinical trials in a couple years, and then we’ll have to start over with aspirin. Can you imagine buying a diuretic called ‘aspirin’?”