WHO Technical Report Series, No. 981 - World Health Organization

13. Nomenclature, terminology and databases
13.1 Quality assurance terminology
The WHO web site provides access to a database of terms and definitions, which
also indicates the WHO guidelines in which these terms and definitions appear.
In October 2011 the Expert Committee created a subgroup to review the list of
terms and definitions to ensure its standardization and potentially to reduce the
number of definitions for each term. Work in this area is ongoing.
13.2 International Nonproprietary Names
for pharmaceutical substances
The Expert Committee received an update on the WHO Programme for
International Nonproprietary Names (INN) for pharmaceutical substances and
received the strategic plan of the INN Programme for 2011–2016.
It was noted that the number of INN had increased significantly in the
past two years. The latest cumulative list of INN (Cumulative List 14), containing
some 8500 INN, was published by WHO in January 2012. A review of the length
of time required for acceptance of an INN showed that the average is 11.9 months,
with 86% of INN being accepted after one or two rounds of discussion. New
stems and pre-stems have also been published.
A notable increase has been seen in the number of biological INN and
this trend is expected to continue. The Expert Committee also noted that the
possible need for a nomenclature scheme for cell therapies is under discussion.
In response to a number of requests to use the INN in databases also
for commercial products, the Programme has developed a web service – named
INN Global Data Hub – to offer INN data access to INN stakeholders. The INN
Global Data Hub is a software system designed to support machine-to-machine
interaction over the network. The MedNet web site was demonstrated, showing
the number of users worldwide.
The Expert Committee noted the report on the work of the INN
Programme.
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