Drugs can be designed by their chemical name, by their generic (or non proprietary) names and by the commercial (or proprietary) name. Drugs can be marketed by more than one company and can have several proprietary or trademark names. In Brazil pharmaceutical companies which produce veterinary drugs use different chemical or generic names to designe the active drug of medicines. This clearly create difficulties for veterinarians inducing errors andmisuses. Medicines for human use on the other hand have a offïcial generic (non-proprietary) name known as Denominações Comuns Brasileiras (Brazilian Common Denomination) which were adopted in accordance with the World Health Organization recomendations. It is stressed that Brazilian Oficial non-proprietary names should also be adopted by manufacturers of veterinary drugs. This would either help to eliminate the necessity for memorizing multiple chemical and generic drug names as been as reduce the possibility of misunderstanding and errors. If veterinary medicines would be marketed in various South-American countries, as a result from the Mercosul comercial agreement, the existence of many names for the same drug can result in an even more conjuse situation. This article deals with this problem and calls for attention for the uniformity of drug nomes.
generic name; chemical name; proprietary name; drug name; prescription
