The highly anticipated diet pill Acomplia (rimonabant) will definitely be marketed in Europe under the name Acomplia, but developer Sanofi-Aventis has provided the strongest hints to date that it probably will sell the weight-loss drug in the United States as Zimulti.

"I can confirm that in Europe, we definitely will launch under the well-established trademark of Acomplia," said Hanspeter Spek, Sanofi's executive vice president, pharmaceutical operations, in response to a question about Zimulti from financial analysts on May 5th.

A committee of the European Medicines Agency (EMEA), the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CMPH), recommended approval of Acomplia and Zimulti as aids to weight-loss on April 28th, initially confusing some financial analysts who thought they might be two different drugs.

"Zimulti is nothing but a secondary trademark," Spek explained on May 5th. "We have applied for two registrations on the European level. Zimulti is nothing but a secondary trademark we may use later for technical reasons."

Those technical reasons probably have a lot to do with the United States, where the Food and Drug Administration -- which has delayed action on approval pending resolution of undisclosed issues -- appears to be objecting to the name Acomplia even though Sanofi has a U.S. trademark for the name.

While Spek did not address the question of what Acomplia may be called in the United States, Sanofi for months has referred to the drug by the generic name rimonabant when discussing the FDA approval process.

A variety of other names have been floated as possible replacements for Acomplia, but Zimulti is looking more and more like Sanofi's choice for the U.S. trade name.