Published Jul 29, 2026 | 8:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jul 29, 2026 | 8:00 AM
Same brand name for drugs with different active ingredients may mislead consumers
Synopsis: The CDSCO has launched a consultation on pharmaceutical companies’ use of brand name extensions after concerns that medicines with different active ingredients sold under the same brand could confuse doctors and patients. The move follows DCC deliberations and aligns with researchers’ warnings that misleading drug names contribute to medication errors in India.
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has initiated a review of how pharmaceutical companies use brand name extensions, amid concerns that marketing different medicines under the same established brand name could mislead doctors, pharmacists and patients about the drug’s contents.
In a public notice issued on 6 July, the national drug regulator invited comments from stakeholders on a proposal regarding the use of brand-name extensions by pharmaceutical firms.
The notice said the regulator had received representations regarding the practice and that concerns raised before the Drugs Consultative Committee (DCC) warranted wider consultation before any policy decision is taken.
“This Directorate has received representations regarding the issue of use of brand name extensions by the pharmaceutical firms,” the CDSCO said in the notice. It added that stakeholders can submit comments until 17 July before the regulator decides its next course of action.
The consultation stemmed from deliberations during the 67th meeting of the Drugs Consultative Committee (DCC) held on 17 November 2025. According to the minutes of the meeting, the committee was informed of a representation alleging that a pharmaceutical company was “marketing multiple drug formulations under the same established brand name with different extensions.”
The committee recorded that “concerns have been raised that the use of the same brand name for drugs with different active ingredients may mislead consumers and create confusion regarding their therapeutic use.”
Rather than recommending an immediate restriction, the DCC decided that the issue required wider discussion. “DCC deliberated the matter in detail and opined to carry out a stakeholder consultation in the matter considering various aspects,” the minutes revealed.
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The regulator’s concern centred on a practice commonly used by pharmaceutical companies, in which an established brand is expanded into multiple products with suffixes or extensions such as “Plus”, “Forte”, “DS”, “MR”, or similar descriptors.
While these products may appear to belong to the same therapeutic family, they can contain different active pharmaceutical ingredients or combinations, potentially creating confusion during prescribing, dispensing or consumption.
For doctors and pharmacists, particularly in busy outpatient settings where medicines are often recognised by brand names rather than generic names, such similarities can increase the possibility of medication errors. Patients, especially those with chronic illnesses who refill prescriptions using familiar brand names, may also assume that medicines with the same parent brand are interchangeable.
The CDSCO notice did not propose a ban on the practice. Instead, it sought stakeholder feedback on whether the current regulatory approach adequately protects patients from such confusion.
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The regulator’s consultation came against the backdrop of growing concern among researchers over India’s wider problem of look-alike, sound-alike (LASA) medicines.
A 2024 viewpoint published in The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia argued that confusing drug names have become an overlooked patient safety issue in India.
“The Indian drug market is full of look-alike, sound-alike (LASA) drugs which have not yet caught the attention of the media or the medical community,” the authors wrote, describing it as “a huge public health problem in India.”
The paper noted that confusion arises not only from similar-sounding names but also from identical or deceptively similar brand names being used for entirely different medicines.
“There are critical issues of similar brands for (i) the same drug and (ii) for different drugs causing confusion among doctors, pharmacists, and patients,” the authors said.
Among the examples cited are Olvance, an antihypertensive medicine containing olmesartan, and Oleanz, an antipsychotic containing olanzapine. The paper also highlighted instances where the same brand name has reportedly been used for entirely different medicines, including Medzol, used for both midazolam and pantoprazole, Flucor, used for fluconazole as well as a combination of flupentixol and melitracen, and Linamac, used for both lenalidomide and linagliptin.
According to the authors, such similarities can create significant challenges because many prescriptions in India mention only brand names, without diagnosis or treatment indications.
“In the case of drugs with identical or similar brand names, there is no way a pharmacist could tell which drug the doctor had prescribed,” the paper stated, adding that there is also no publicly accessible database that allows healthcare professionals to identify duplicate brand names across the market.
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The researchers argued that confusing names are not merely a branding issue but a patient safety concern.
“LASA drugs may lead to significant medication errors and could quite conceivably result in harm to the patients,” they wrote. “Identical brand names contribute the most to such medication errors.”
According to the paper, the consequences can range from unnecessary drug effects and adverse reactions to progression of disease when patients receive the wrong medicine instead of the intended one. The problem is particularly concerning in low- and middle-income countries such as India, where shortages of trained pharmacists and inconsistent dispensing practices can further increase the likelihood of errors.
The authors also argued that confusing branding extends beyond names. Similar-looking tablets and packaging can make medicines difficult to distinguish, especially for patients with limited literacy who often rely on the appearance of a strip or tablet to identify their medicines.
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The paper is also critical of India’s existing regulatory framework.
It noted that judicial directions require drug regulators to examine trademark search reports before granting marketing authorisation to avoid misleading brand names.
However, the authors argued that “the very existence of countless misleading brand names shows that India’s drug regulator, Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), is not doing what it is tasked to do.”
The researchers recommended several measures, including immediate withdrawal of misleading brand names, greater use of International Nonproprietary Names (INNs) in prescriptions, adoption of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Phonetic and Orthographic Computer Analysis (POCA) tool while approving new brand names, and stronger monitoring of prescription and dispensing errors.
While the CDSCO consultation is limited to brand-name extensions used by pharmaceutical companies, it addresses one aspect of a broader concern highlighted by researchers: whether branding practices can inadvertently increase the risk of medication errors.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
