This list of pharmaceutical compound number prefixes details a pharmaceutical drug labeling standard. Pharmaceutical companies produce a large number of compounds, which cannot all be given names. Instead, they are systematically numbered for internal reference. The number is prefixed with a letter code indicating which company synthesized the compound. For example, CP-529414 is the compound number for the recently failed Pfizer experimental drug torcetrapib. If the company or its agents choose to publish information or research results about the drug before it has been assigned a generic name (such as an INN, USAN, or BAN), they will refer to it by this number.
A large list of code designations with corresponding trade names can be found in Appendix IV of the USP Dictionary.
There are three primary methods of prefixing the numeric identifier - with a space, with nothing, and most commonly with a dash.
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