Sanofi Aventis’s RockBand Title

Dear Guitar Hero/Rockband recovering addicts,

The other day while dispensing a prescription for an insulin analogue (an insulin that has been modified to alter its pharmacology), I had a quick musing about the brand name on the box. This particular insulin-analogue has been around for a few years now; I’ve dispensed it as an intern when I was in school. But I think the development of this particular delivery device is a (relatively) new thing.

Just a quick background: Insulin in the olden days would just come in vials and would need to be drawn up in a syringe separately. Most insulin still comes this way, and most customers will have a prescription for both the insulin and the syringes (I like to tap the sign that reads 'NO SYRINGE SALES WITHOUT PRESCRIPTION'). But a few drug companies had the smart idea of making pre-filled syringes and packaging those in boxes. Voila. The insulin pen (so-called because it looks like a pen) was born.

Diabetics would just need to attach a needle to the device and inject themselves. And since the pen could control the amount of insulin injected, there wouldn’t be need to draw up each individual dose. I’m not insulin-dependent, but I’d bet it would suck to have to draw up each dose of insulin and stick yourself several times a day, so at least these pen devices make it mildly less inconvenient. And I think you could tote around a pen without having to refrigerate it. I wish I had an pharmacist-intern to look up the answer, because that's what they're for (besides fetching coffee).

And the boxes the pre-filled pens come in are fairly large, so I like being able to stick the label on it without having to fold it around the box. If you’ve labeled a Novolin insulin box, you know how irritating it can be to have a flap of prescription label hanging around the edge of a box (or is it just my being anal?).

Getting back to the product, I’ve dispensed this particular pen device quite a few times, but for some reason I was thinking about old-school rock and the now ubiquitous RockBand/GuitarHero/Clone games.

I waxed silently in my head, ‘Lantus Solostar. That sounds a lot like a title for one of those video games!’

Then I said it aloud, causing the (pharmacy) tech to give me a funny look that implied, ‘WTF are you talking about?’ Sometimes you should keep your random thoughts to yourself. But then again, silences can be awkward.