The way drug manufacturers identify drugs used for drug trials (“investigational drugs”) can lead to medication errors:

1. If investigational drugs are identified using a number preceded by an abbreviation of the sponsoring company’s name (e.g., BMS104579 for a drug sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb), organizations that participate in multiple drug trials sponsored by the same company could confuse one drug with another sponsored by that company.
2. If a letter/number designation on an investigational drug is too long (some are up to 25 characters long) or are described with multiple words, pharmacies may be forced to truncate the code name due to field size limitations.
3. If a letter-number-code (see above) is used and then the investigational drug gets a generic or common name, the code name may remain on the product label while the research team refers to the drug by its new generic name. This could cause confusion on the part of the person administering the medication.
4. If the sponsoring company is part of a merger or the sponsoring company or the product is sold, the code name could change—the abbreviation at the beginning of the code might change to the abbreviation of the new sponsoring company.
   

If you are taking an investigational drug (a drug that is part of a drug trial or clinical trial) and there are adverse affects, you need to contact an attorney immediately. Drug companies are not going to be forthcoming with medical records and other information. It will take what is called “discovery” to get the records needed to determine if there was a medication error. If there was a medication error, you have the right to sue all responsible parties for compensation. Please contact a medical error litigation attorney at Pritzker | Ruohonen for a free consultation. Our toll-free number is 1-888-377-8900. If you call after hours, please leave a message for the on-call attorney, who will return your call as soon as possible, usually within a few hours.

Information in the November 2007 Institute for Safe Medication Practices newsletter was used for this article.

Labels: clinical trial, drug names, drug trial, medication error lawyer