The World Health Organisation has put its biological naming convention proposal on hold following a lack of consensus at an expert meeting in Geneva.

In minutes from the meeting, attended by clinicians, health policy experts, regulators, academia and health economists,  it was noted that as no consensus had been achieved  the WHO would “not be proceeding with [the naming convention] at present.”

The WHO International Nonproprietary Names (INN) had proposed a Biological Qualifier (BQ) scheme, which would apply a random four consonant code to all biological medicines.

As previously reported by the limbic (see story here), the TGA recently launched a long awaited public consultation to gather feedback on proposals for potential biological naming systems, including options for aligning with systems proposed by the EU and the US.

The public consultation closed in September and a spokesperson for the TGA said it would publish the  submissions “in due course”.