(NEXSTAR) — Pfizer received full FDA approval for its vaccine and now there’s a new vaccine name being thrown around: Comirnaty.
Comirnaty, who? It’s the same exact mRNA vaccine Pfizer has been producing through the emergency use authorization, but now it’s being marketed under the new name. Comirnaty is administered in two doses, three weeks apart, just like Pfizer doses have been all along.
The vaccine name is pronounced koe-mir’-na-tee. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but neither did “Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine,” which is what it was technically called before.
The name was developed by Brand Institute in conjunction with BioNTech and Pfizer, according to Fierce Pharma.
“The name is coined from COVID-19 immunity, and then embeds the mRNA in the middle, which is the platform technology, and as a whole, the name is meant to evoke the word community,” Scott Piergrossi, Brand Institute president of operations and communications, told the site.
The rebranding didn’t go unnoticed – nor unpunished – on social media.
Pfizer’s vaccine isn’t the only one with an alter ego. Moderna’s is branded as Spikevax in Europe. The one-shot Johnson & Johnson shot is technically called the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine after the American company’s Belgian subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals.