system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
how do pharma labs choose the name of the meds they produce?

Do they follow any naming rules? from my point of view, if some names give a hint at what the medicine does/cures, most of them just look like someone found a funny name. Is there any existing rule for that?
gpt
They can pretty much give it whatever *brand* name they want, and generally go with something that their marketing folks tell them sounds good and conveys the effect of the drug (eg lopressor to lower blood pressure).  The *generic* names generally follow a set of nomenclature rules where a certain suffix denotes a certain class of drug - for example, beta blockers end in -lol (eg metoprolol, atenolol, labetalol), ACE inhibitors end in -pril (eg lisinopril, captopril, ramipril), monoclonal antibodies end in -mab (eg abciximab, inflixicimab), etc.  So often even if you don't know what this particular drug does, you can guess what class it is in based on the name.  Of course, there are always exceptions (for example, acetaminophen, the generic name of Tylenol, is just a shortened version of the IUPAC name, N-acetyl-p-aminophenol).