Why do so many modern cancer drug names end with the letter B?

IvyMike · on Jan 21, 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_nomenclature, https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/867446_3

TL;DR: -ab is related to antibody, -ib is related to inhibitors.

agumonkey · on Jan 21, 2018

these are immunotherapy drugs, ib means inhibitor and ab means antibody IIRC.

pkaye · on Jan 21, 2018

Drugs that end in mab are monoclonal anti-bodies. They are cloned copies of anti-bodies from various sources that target something in the body.

mitchtbaum · on Jan 21, 2018

Caution: etymologically-oriented answers generally miss important nominological / nymological / onomatological / onomastic foundations. This namespace is a "synthetic" social construction. It has interesting "quirks", "gotchas", and "zingers".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomastics

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/onomatology

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nomen

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-nym

http://messymatters.com/nominology/

aviv · on Jan 21, 2018

It's like .com domains. They're running out of good names. Ending with letter B is Big Pharma version of .io domains.