General Statements

For 50 years, the Index Nominum has been the indispensable standard reference work on medications, proprietary (trade) names, synonyms, chemical structures and therapeutic classes of substances, providing orientation in the international pharmaceutical market. For the sake of clarity and enhanced user-friendliness, only medications containing a single active substance are listed, with the exception of certain fixed compound medications.

The Index Nominum is published in English. The choice of language reflects the worldwide importance of this reference work. Because of this, the International Nonproprietary Names (INN) suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) are given in their official English form, differentiating between the proposed and the recommended INNs. All other official designations are given in the language of the country of origin or in Latin.

As a rule, the monographs give the International Nonproprietary Name (INN), followed by the Latin, German, French, Italian and Spanish designations (where available), the therapeutic class of the substance, the ATC and ATCvet code, the CAS number, the empirical formula with the molecular mass, the chemical designation, the structural formula, official and inofficial synonyms, the titles of the monographs of the corresponding pharmacopoeias and finally the alphabetical list of the proprietary names with information provided by the manufacturer (name, country codes: ISO 3166).

This is followed by the individual derivatives of the corresponding substance in bold. Their clear differentiation was a major goal set for this reference work. In view of the fact that the information coming from certain countries was not always totally accurate, it was sometimes a considerable task.

For each substance that is listed in a pharmacopoeia, Index Nominum gives the corresponding title of the monograph. The standards of the European Pharmacopoeia are valid in Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In addition, it is possible that national monographs may also be valid.

For each listed substance, all proprietary (trade) names that could be gathered from the available literature are mentioned. It was very important to provide the greatest possible completeness, but gaps may still be present. We would therefore be very grateful if our users notify us of any missing medications. We would like to stress that the proprietary names mentioned in this collection in no way imply an endorsement on our part. The Index Nominum lists – with a few exceptions – only medications containing a single active compound. Proprietary names are designated as such with the registered symbol (®).