Each individual drug can have two kinds of names:

• A generic name – this is the drug's medical name.
• A trade name – this is a name that may be given by the company that makes the drug.

A drug only has one generic name – but it might also have several different trade names if more than one company makes it.

It's useful to know both the generic name and the trade names for a drug, because people might talk about the same drug using different names.

For example, the antidepressant fluoxetine (generic name) can also be referred to by the trade names Olena, Oxactin, Prozac and Prozep. 

This information was published in 2016. We will revise it in 2018.