A Biotech By Any Other Name

Erica P. Johnson Genentech, Generex, GenVec, GenVac, Genzyme. Each of these companies may have its own corporate identity, but with more than 50 licensed biotechs whose names begin with "gen," they quickly start to sound the same. While imitation may be the highest form of flattery, it's not always a business savvy move. A company's name is arguably its most important marketing tool, often responsible for creating a positive first impression and increasing a company's visibility. With so much at stake, biotech executives can spend a lot of time pondering what's in a name. "A name should be a promise to the customer," says Henri Charmasson, director of research at ALIAS, a name-consulting firm in San Diego. "It's going to be your goodwill ambassador, the first thing your customer is going to hear about your company."1 To cultivate those customers, companies spend big bucks on market research to build their names from the ground up. It's all designed to make the biggest possible impression on investors. "From the venture capitalist point of view, we see literally thousands of business plans a year," says Greg Lichiolai, an associate of Domain Associates, a Princeton, NJ, venture capital firm. "So it's an advantage for a business to have a name that tells you what they're doing and to help you remember who they are." Long gone are the times when Big Pharma could settle for family pride as inspiration for business names. Companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and Proctor & Gamble were formed in a less competitive marketplace that afforded them decades to build up their brand names. Today, greater competition means biotechs are eager for any advantage to gain a share of the market, but surnames provide a slew of problems for startups. "People's names don't really connote much information, and they may not even sound good," says Scott Armstrong, professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania. "They can't be registered, and the names aren't very descriptive." WEIGHING DETAIL But too much information has its limitations as well. Overly descriptive names may limit future business expansion. Charmasson says that selecting a technical name is a familiar problem for biotechs. "Many technical names are confusing or sound similar to something else," he explains. "You also can't outgrow an overly descriptive name." Needing to reach audiences of investors, employees, and academia, companies lean towards names that give some ideas about the product and also evoke positive connotations. The Miami-based Brand Institute, which has helped to develop notable biotech names such as Amgen, Chiron, and Genentech, uses a systematic approach. "We first sit with the top management to discuss the companies' missions, what they plan to focus on initially and possible spin-offs," says James Dettore, president and CEO of the Institute. "Then comes the creation of names." After creating a list of potential names, Dettore says, the institute narrows what can be hundreds of ideas down to a handful. The institute performs market research and legal searches on the remainders. The potential names have to be checked for availability and compared to other names for rhyming, alliteration, sound-alikes, and look-alikes to avoid copyright infringement. A daunting task, as there are over 3 million marks in the US trademark office alone, not to mention several million more domain names throughout the rest of the world. After all this, focus groups give their views of the proposed designations. The advent of the Internet has complicated naming strategies even further, as companies must pay attention to making their names nonoffensive and linguistically palatable in other languages as well. Idec, a San Diego biotech, has used this global approach to its advantage. According to its Web site, its name came from the Japanese "Idec Izumi," which comprises the Chinese characters for harmony and fountain.2 The company's slogan is "to strive for a fountain of creative ideas through harmonious teamwork." However, with copyright restrictions and only 26 letters in the English alphabet to work with, anything short of using another language can make originality a victim. "In most cases, names shouldn't be over three syllables for memorability," Dettore says. "So you're usually looking for a name that's 10 to 12 letters long." GENERALLY OVERUSED From the multitude of genetics-based companies, the prefix gen has been affixed to many monikers. As one of the world's first biotech companies, Genentech helped to establish a trend in biotech nomenclature through the use of contraction. It was named by merging the words genetics, engineering, and technology when it was founded in 1976, according to Page Sargisson, manager of corporate relations at Genentech. Other companies, such as Amgen, combine the practical and whimsical: Its name bears a contraction of genetics and "am," which is believed to sound friendly. "Advertisers are being smart, playing on how we activate lots of information on hearing familiar words or even pieces of words even for a fraction of a second," says Michael Walsh Dickey, assistant professor of linguistics at Northwestern University. If all else fails, Dettore advises companies to develop completely nonsensical names. Such whimsy may not help the audience learn the mission of the company or provide as much bang for the advertising buck. But sometimes, even an arbitrary name can turn out okay. Just ask the folks at Xerox or Kodak. Hal Cohen can be contacted at hcohen@the-scientist.com References 1. H. Charmasson, "Rules to the game of choosing a name," Wealth Building, 1997, p. 53. 2. www.idec.com/Global/G_company.html function sendData() { document.frm.pathName.value = location.pathname; result = false if (document.frm.score[0].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[1].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[2].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[3].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[4].checked) result = true; if (!result) alert("Please select") return result; } .myradio{background-color : #94bee5} Please indicate on a 1 - 5 scale how strongly you would recommend this article to your colleagues? Not recommended 1 2 3 4 5 Highly recommended Please register your vote

A Biotech By Any Other Name

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