USP Quality Review

No. 68, Issued September 1999

Celebra Becomes Celebrex

Celebrex (celecoxib), a new agent for treating arthritis, originally planned to use the proprietary name "Celebra." The USP Medication Errors Reporting (MER) Program started to receive reports concerning the name "Celebra" while the drug was still in clinical trials. Several reporters observed that the name was too similar to the name of the antidepressant Celexa (citalopram hydrobromide). Before market approval, manufacturers of celecoxib announced that the name would be changed. The selected name, Celebrex, however, did not eliminate reporters' apprehension that the product would be confused with Celexa.

Furthermore, practitioners began to express concern that orders for Celebrex could also be misinterpreted as Cerebyx (fosphenytoin sodium), an anticonvulsant drug. To date, the USP MER Program has received nine reports specifically describing the three names together as a problem because they are too similar. Additional reports mention the problem of similar names, citing various combinations of two of the three products. Recently, the pharmaceutical companies Searle and Pfizer, the co-marketers of Celebrex, released an educational campaign to inform health care practitioners that the name Celebrex may be potentially confused with Cerebyx and Celexa. Despite this effort, the USP MER Program continues to receive reports about this problem.