Medical Translation Insight

Like most industries, the translation business is full of jargon, acronyms, and expressions that are weird and confusing to lay people (L10N, anyone?).

But few concepts are as confusing to newcomers as translation memory and glossary. If I had a dime for every time these terms where used incorrectly (usually meaning the other one), then I wouldn't be writing this blog today. So, here is a look at some of the differences between translation memories and terminology glossaries.

What is translation memory?
A translation memory (abbreviated as "TM") is a database of pairs of translation segments (source language and target language). A segment is usually a sentence but can also be a sub-heading, a table cell, or other text block.

In contrast to machine translation, a translation memory is not an automated translation tool: it does not have any linguistic "knowledge". TMs made up of previously-translated material. Essentially, TMs become more useful as more segments are added to it.

How does a TM work?
When a linguist is translating a document, they will have a TM open. If there is no content in a TM (such as for a new client), they will open a blank TM. This enables them to create a kind of file called an "unclean" or "bilingual" file, which contains the source text and the translation. Once the translation is complete, the unclean file can be "cleaned" into a TM, which removes the English (leaving just the translation), and populating the TM with the pairs of segments. Doing this over and over again with translated files makes the TM larger and more useful.

TMs work on a segment-by-segment basis. The TM application looks to see if there is a match between a source segment in the text to be translated and a source segment that was previously stored in the TM database. If there is a match, then it presents this information in a log file (this is called an "analysis"). The number of matches it finds is called "leveraging".

An exact match is called a 100% match. Segments that almost match are called fuzzy matches and range from a less than 75% match all the way to a 100% match. Segments that are brand new are called no matches. If a segment is repeated more in the file(s) for translation than once it is called a repetition. Translation Memories are able to analyze multiple files at once in order to gain leveraging across a whole project; not just one file.

While working on a file, the translator can then accept a translation, replace it with a new one, or edit it to match the source. Some "high fuzzy" matches (i.e., those with a 95-99% match level) will require only a little editing, whereas no matches will require a brand new translation.

Industry standards for charging for TM matches
There are some informal standards on how clients get charged for repeated text, 100% matches and fuzzy matches. Usually, repetitions and 100% matches are charged at a rate of 10% of the full per-word rate. This ensures that a linguist reviews this text (important because even though the leveraged text might not change, the context around it could have changed).

For fuzzy matches the charge to the client depends on the degree of the fuzzy match: high fuzzy matches (95%-99%) are usually charged at a lower percentage than low fuzzy matches (75%-85%). No matches are charged at the full per-word rate.

What is the difference between a TM and a glossary?
While TMs work on a sentence-by-sentence level, glossaries are list of individual terms or short expressions. Here is an example:

A glossary is independent of a TM. Some device and pharmaceutical companies maintain terminology glossaries by product line, by department, by division, or company wide. Sometimes they are short (50 entries) but they can run into the hundreds of entries.

One of the big differences is in what gets included. TMs usually include anything and everything translated - the more, the better.

Glossaries, on the other hand, should be built selectively. For example, clients with software applications sometimes think that the glossary should contain all software strings - and maybe even error messages, status messages, and the like. This will make the glossary unwieldy for the translators and unmanageable for the client.

Linguists generally use glossaries alongside a TM. For example, if a translator comes across a 75% match, but some terminology is different, they may find that terminology in a glossary. Without a TM, a glossary can be very useful especially for technical pieces. If the terminology is already translated, the linguist then only has to translate around these terms, making their job easier and faster. Making sure that the glossary and the TM are in concordance with each other (i.e., the TM does not contain different terminology from the glossary) is very important.

Similarities between TMs and glossaries
To be effective, both TMs and glossaries need to be managed. It is not sufficient to create a TM and think that it will never need to be touched again. Just like any database, glossaries and TMs need to be updated and cleaned as new terminology expressions emerge, or as languages themselves change.

Larger drug and device companies have staff dedicated to this. Smaller companies and departments usually include this as part of the solution that they expect from their translation service provider.


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We have previously provided rationalizations for buying a Nintendo DS game system. Still need more reasons? If you or a your kid suffers from diabetes, Bayer's Didget may provide just that kind of excuse.

According to the Marketing with Meaning blog, Bayer created Didget with the help of a parent who noticed that while his son was constantly losing his glucose meter, he always had his Nintendo Game Boy close by. For patients, Didget turns testing from a chore into game play.

For Bayer, the product represents an interesting step into the realm of online marketing - Didget has generated buzz in tech-gadget related blogs and in online diabetic communities. Who knows? It may even move Bayer into the age of social networking.


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Across most medical device and pharmaceutical companies, this is the time of year when next year's budgets are compiled.

Translation budgets are gaining increased visibility in this process. The following will provide a good how-to outline and allow translation managers to fine-tune their numbers to get more accurate forecasts and tease out ways to save money.

Establish project types
First of all, establish a matrix of your project types. Outline typical projects that you have translated, with some specifications around them.

For example, you might have IFUs that are 4 pages long, created in Adobe InDesign, with an average word count of 1,200 words. Get as refined as you can in the specifications, even within the same document type, there can be variations. Do the same for all the project types you submit for translation, whether you have labels, help files, Web pages, and so on.

History
A good way to determine your project types is to look at the past year or two. What types of projects did you do? How many did you do? What languages, word counts, page counts and so on. This is an area where your vendor can help you. By linking average costs for your established project types gets you halfway home to creating your budget.

Do you see any trends when you look at past years? Did prices go up when you changed software? Did your costs spike when a new language was added to the mix? Did TM leveraging stay steady? Again, lean on your agency for help with this.

Research
Next, do a little research. Is there anything coming up that will impact translation? Are some new countries joining the EU or now requiring localized documentation? Are there any new regulatory directives or requirements that will require new translations for existing products? Do you plan to redesign any of your documents or templates in the coming year? Were there, or are there any pending, company mergers or acquisitions that will mean re-branding or absorption of a new set of documentation.

These are items to note and gauge the impact of that would add new costs to the translation mix on top of your project types.

Look ahead
Now that you have your project types, average costs associated with each and any new requirements determined, you need to find out what is ahead. To do this, you have to get input from the decision-makers at your company. Poll your internal clients. Does marketing plan any new campaigns? Are there new products being launched that require new documentation? Are products going to be sold in a new geography next year?

By determining these things, you can see where and what types of documentation will be needed and where new translations come in.

Pull it all together
Finally, pull it all together. Remember your matrix of project types? Now you can fill in how many of each are expected in the coming year and what languages for each. You can create a rough schedule for timing to find potential bottlenecks. And finally, you can add in a column for the estimated prices for each project, based on metrics from the past year and from input from your translation provider.

Though it may seem like dumping work on them, they will actually appreciate this kind of detailed forecasting information because their sales managers are also asking them what is coming.

Budgeting doesn't have to be such a crystal ball exercise if you identify your variables, project types and use metrics to get estimated costs. In this way, it becomes more of a methodical scientific process and one that can yield accurate forecasts, great ideas for cost savings and happy upper management.
Three more to read:

• The translation manager's dilemma
• Budgeting for Translations
• Translation budgeting: How to do more with less

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Microsoft is in some doo doo over its international marketing techniques.

First off there is the fact that the company used photo editing techniques to change the race of a person depicted. In content to be used on its Polish web site on the company's Web site.



The company had to apologize for the gaffe and pull down the altered image.

There are a couple of curiosities about this incident. First, why was this such a big deal? Aren't companies supposed to do exactly this, i.e., adapt their marketing materials for each audience/target market?

Second, why was Microsoft's Photoshop work done so badly? The black person's face was replaced and the tone of his hands (along with the face of the Asian person) were crudely lightened.

It will be interesting if/what the longer-term fallout and lessons are from this.


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How do you measure the quality of a translation if you don't understand the translated text?

Kirti Vashee gave his answer in a recent guest post on the Tomedes Blog.

Kirti advocates the use of BLEU. Essentially, the BLEU metric measures how many words overlap in the source and target texts, giving higher scores to sequential words. BLEU scores a translation on a 0 to 1 scale. The higher the score (i.e., the closer to 1), the more overlap there is with a human reference translation and thus the better the translation is.

He is not minimizing the challenge of measuring translation quality:

Anybody who has tried to measure translation quality will understand the difficulty of doing this in a way that has any general credibility. Developers of statistical machine translation systems, in particular have to grapple with this issue on a constant basis to understand how to evolve the state of the technology.

And while there may be a role for the BLEU metric, there are clearly some shortcomings as well. Kirti's post as well as a recent academic paper [PDF link] and a newspaper article all highlight serious problems and limitations of the BLEU approach.

What's interesting is that all of these discussions are moving away from the goal of having "perfect" output for machine translation tools. Academics, computational linguists and software engineers are doing a nice job resetting expectations to "good enough" translation output.

Three more to read:

• What constitutes “good enough” in (machine) translation?
• Why measure translation quality?
• ASTM F 2575-06: A Practical Guide for Achieving Translation Quality

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Yesterday we received the sad news that Carlos Rivarola has passed away.

Carlos and I first met in Boston, almost 20 years ago. We were working together on a large translation project. As a newbie to the translation business, I remember being thoroughly impressed by the fact that Carlos had already 10+ years of translation experience under his belt, had lived in Europe and Latin America, and had big plans for the future.

And he wasn't one to procrastinate: Soon afterward, he left for Argentina to start his own company, Spanish Express. Even back then, Carlos had the same scraggly beard as in the picture :-)

In the years since then, it has been a joy working with him and the rest of the Spanish Express team. Throughout this time, I have always appreciated Carlos' level head, his fairness, and his sense of humor. Basically, he was just a really nice person, and we are deeply saddened by the loss of our trusted colleague.

We miss you, Carlos!

Here is a good compliment to the recently mentioned TypeIt. If you ever had a text that you cannot identity, LangID is for you.

LangID does one thing and does it well: It analyzes a snippet of text and tells you what language it is written in. In my tests, it identified even single words.

You can input text into LangID in multiple ways; simply cutting and pasting text into the dialog box is the most straight-forward option. You can also upload a DOC, PDF, or XLS file for analysis, send a short text to LangID via Twitter, or email the document to them for an automatic reply.

LangID is a free service annd requires no signup. Supposedly LangID can identify 85 languages - note, however, that in tests run by MakeUseOf, LangID failed to identify Tatar and Belorussian.

[Via Lifehacker]


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China is one of the most attractive secondary markets for medical device manufacturers worldwide. The regulatory requirements mandated by the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) have been evolving.

The following overview of how to classify and register medical devices in China is provided by ChinaGate's Janice Ma.

Medical device classification
There are three classes of medical device in China:

• Class I: Those which safety and effectiveness can be ensured through routine administration.
• Class II: Those which further control is required to ensure their safety and effectiveness.
• Class III: Those which are implanted into the human body, or used to support or sustain life, or pose potential risk to the human body and thus must be strictly controlled in respect to safety and effectiveness.

It is important to note that product classifications differ between China and other countries. For example, a simple syringe is a Class III device in China because SFDA views it as a high-risk product. Also nowadays, SFDA has the tendency to classify more devices which contain active ingredients or drug ingredients under the drug category.

Product registration types
There are two types of product registration: a new application and a license amendment. A lot of device companies view the Chinese registration process as difficult and complicated - often because "new applications" tend to apply to a broad range of situations.

For example, a change in manufacturing sites will be grounds for a "new" application because SFDA feels that the whole product QA system has changed. Similarly, adding new models or new accessories will cause an application to be considered new, especially if there are any technical changes which will affect product specification.

Another example is the situation of a pure software product that will be updated every three to six months. In practice that will mean that the minute you obtain approval for one version, you may already have updated your product to the next version and need to restart the whole application process.

Key factors
For a successful device registration in China, manufacturers need:

1. a clear understanding of China and the foreign regulations. When you know the requirements from both sides, you can be well prepared with your technical files and other documents.
2. a robust strategy and a creative route to navigate SDFA's product registration processes. If China is strategically important for your company, spend time up-front, before you rush into any registration project in China.
3. to appoint a professional and independent bilingual registration agent with broad experience. They should be capable of writing an accurate professional dossier, need to know how to select high-quality testing centers, must have good relationships with SFDA officials, and have experience with the organization of clinical trials and clinical data.

With preparation, local know-how, and determination, medical device registrations in China become a manageable part of doing business in a fast-growing market.


ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized medical translation services to medical device companies - in Chinese and dozens of other languages. Contact us to find out why our clients rave about us!
 
 

The Japanese government's IP Strategic Headquarter appears set to revise its patent examination standards for medical inventions involving known drug compounds. From the end of 2009 As reported by Patent Baristas, patent protection for new and inventive dosage regimens and administration modes will be granted as "product-related inventions", provided that the claimed drug has effects beyond that which is expected by a person skilled in the art.

The Japan IP Strategic Headquarter's report "The Current State of Patent Protection in Advanced Medicine" [PDF link] is available in Japanese only.

In other JPO news, East meets West reports that from March 2010 onward, the JPO will no longer accept applications via ISDN. Further information is available on JPO's website, but again only in Japanese.


ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized medical translations for regulatory submissions, labeling, and safety reports - in Japanese and dozens of other languages. Contact us to find out more.
 
 

eCTD here, eCTD there, eCTD everywhere. With all of the talk about electronic submissions coming and being the best thing since sliced bread, it is easy to overlook two facts:

1. Most pharma companies are still doing paper-based submissions.
2. Electronic submissions will never completely replace paper - there some instances where it simply doesn't make sense to go electronic.

A recent discussion in LinkedIn's Electronic Data Capture group drove this point home.

The consensus seems to be that Phase I studies are likely to stay paper-based. Electronic solutions seem to make sense for studies with more than roughly 200 patients at more than 10 sites. Below that, paper is simpler, faster, and less expensive.

Commentators also posted suggestions for how to evaluate the paper-versus-electronic decision. Here are some of the things to consider:

• Time spent by monitors physically handling paper
• Storage, security, and transport costs
• Need for greater number of support staff
• Cost and time for qualifying EDC vendor
• Cost and time for validating and maintaining EDC system
• Internet access in remote locations

For translation service providers, that means that XML will grow in importance but Word and PDF files aren't going away anytime soon...


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The typical "Yellow Pages" translation service provider claims to translate anything for anybody. However, pharmaceutical and device companies need linguists who truly understand the jargon, abbreviations, concepts, and turns of phrases that are common in their space. Otherwise, they end up with funny-sounding translations, mistakes, product recalls or patient deaths.

Translation tests are a fact of life up and down the translation service delivery chain. Some clients conduct them as paid "pilots" or as unpaid tests. Most translation companies ask subcontractors to conduct short unpaid tests.

Translation tests are also universally hated and decried as ineffective, just plain wrong, or even unethical.

So, what are clients and translators to do?

• First of all, evaluate why a translation test is needed. What are you trying to test? How will you evaluate and use the results? Is a test translation to best way to get to these results?
• Then, determine what the test should cover and how long it should be. I believe that a translation test doesn't have to be long to be effective. I can give somebody three carefully selected sentences and determine whether or not the translator has a sufficient command of the subject matter and language.
• Finally, decide whether or not to pay for a test (if you are the client) or whether or not you are willing to do an unpaid test (if you are the service provider).

Most linguists who are interested in working with us at ForeignExchange Translations agree to take our short (unpaid) test translation. We do frequently have applicants who refuse to take our tests. Sometimes we convince them to make an exception for us but if we cannot convince, we move on.

The same is true for our clients. We recently participated in an RFP for a large biotech company. One of the steps was a test translation - approximately 3,000 words long. After questioning the unusual length of the text, we were essentially told that the client was "looking for a committed supplier that will work closely with us; if you're not even willing to invest a bit of your time and money, then clearly you are not the right supplier for us".

We did what I believe every translation service provider should do:

1. We weighted the cost vs. the potential benefits. In this instance, there was no comparison, and we dedicated extensive resources to make sure that we not just submitted translated text but that we produced the best possible translation: we conducted extensive research, we paid our linguists, and we invested in additional QA steps.
2. We made sure that we could use this test translation as a learning opportunity. We tried to get receive quality expectations from the client up-front (sometimes that's possible and sometimes it isn't), we asked the client to commit to giving us feedback on our translation, we managed the test as a project (i.e., kickoff meetings, regular status updates, delivery confirmation), we proactively followed-up with the client to get feedback and schedule a debrief. If you do test translations, do them right!

Let's face it: When it comes to translation quality in the pharmaceutical and medical device space, you definitely don't just take the vendor's word for it. Clients test, they check and double-check, audit, measure and improve. Service providers either understand that - or they stay away from medical translations.

[Thanks, Jenna, for the topic!]


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As regular readers know, we are pretty opinionated when it comes to translation quality.

Everybody in our industry talks about quality most suppliers struggle with the basic - how to define and implement a robust quality-assurance process. The talk usually falls into two categories:

1. proclamations of an absolute (and, of course, incredibly high) quality standard
2. using a flurry of numbers and metrics to supposedly "prove" quality

Most of the talk is nothing more than smoke and mirrors though.

Slogan's like "zero defects" are good at rallying the troops but ineffective at bringing about quality. This kind of across-the-board quality level misses what drug and device companies are looking for and is statistically impossible as well as cost prohibitive.

Partially as a way to obfuscate the fact that zero defects aren't possible, some suppliers throw out around all kinds of quality "statistics" and metrics. Now, at ForeignExchange we happen to believe quality metrics are important - not in and of themselves but if they are part of a robust quality measurement and improvement system.

Summing it all up as "Quality" doesn't do the trick, the Translate This! blog makes a terrific argument for replacing the term "quality" with "usability":

If we forget about "quality" and instead talk about "usability" or "utility" of a translation, we have a metric that should make sense to the client since it affects areas that cost money: higher pay with longer working hours if it takes their technicians longer to understand the text; repairs and liability issues if there are errors in the repair manual; higher demand on the call center if the user abandons the text in favor of calling; loss of revenue if the product becomes known as difficult to install/operate due to sub-standard documentation.

While it is hard to argue with a client who doesn't want Nobel Prize prose, it is easy to argue with a client (should it be necessary to argue at all) who doesn't want top usability.

Now we're talking!


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India is a large country with a fast-growing demand for high-quality medical technology products. However, regulation of medical devices has been slow in coming.

The year 2006 marked a turning point, of sorts. New guidelines for sterile medical devices came into force on March 1, 2006. Later in the year the draft Medical Device Regulation Act [PDF link] was released.

So, progress looks like it is coming - but it has been coming slowly.

A recent presentation of the Asian Harmonization Working Party [PDF link] outlined some of the past issues with the Indian regulatory system:

• medical devices are grouped with and regulated like drugs
• that, in turn, is posing difficulties in terms of manufacturing, testing, and adverse reporting
• to date, regulations have retroactive instead of proactive

Yet there could be an end to the delays: Pacific Bridge Medical reported a few weeks ago that India's Drug Consultative Committee and the Drug Technical Advisory Board approved the draft regulation and that final notification by the Ministry of Health "is expected soon".

When it's finally done, foreign as well as domestic device manufacturers will be relieved that they finally have a regulatory framework that allows them to continue growing their businesses.


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I just came across this terrific post for you: 50 Things Successful People Have in Common from Craig Harper on The DEW View.

The list is written for a general audience. But just like the 50 things your customers wish you knew, it is highly applicable to the translation space.

The whole list is relevant but here are a handful that really resonated:

3. They are solution focused.
14. They innovate rather than imitate.
22. While many people are reactive, they are proactive. They take action before they have to.
32. They are generous and kind. They take pleasure in helping others achieve.
39. They don't hang out with toxic people.
46. Their career is not their identity, it’s their job. It’s not who they are, it’s what they do.

No need to get hung-up on memorizing or trying to apply all 50 items though. Read through the list, pick a few that will help you overcome challenges, and then work on those.

[Via the Medical Sales Recruiter blog]


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After the successful start to our Medical Translation Blog, we have taken the plunge into deeper social media sites. Our very own Twitter site is up-and-running now at twitter.com/fxtrans.

We will tweet blog topics, both from this blog and our audio conference blog. In addition, we'll post links to interesting articles that aren't a perfect fit for our blog as well as special offers on upcoming audio conferences.

It will be interesting to see how this influences our social networking experiment.

If you're on Twitter, post your coordinates in the comments, and we'll be sure to follow you. Happy tweeting!


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Health Canada will require Summary Technical Document (STED) format for Class 3/4 medical device submissions, according to the QA/RA.info blog.

The STED format for regulatory submissions is a harmonized submission format developed by the Global Harmonization Task Force (GHTF). GHTF promotes international harmonization of medical device regulation through the preparation and distribution of guidelines such as the proposed STED format.

In addition to Canada, STED continues to gain ground around the world. The EU system has encouraged the adoption of the STED as it fits well with the European technical documentation requirements.

In Asia, the Asian Harmonization Working Party is seeking views on the proposed Common Submission Dossier Template guidance document which is based on STED.

And in the U.S., FDA launched a STED pilot program several years ago.

Stay tuned for updates to the STED guidance document, which is expected later this year.


ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized translation services to drug and device companies - in Canadian French and 35 other languages!
 
 

For ForeignExchange and many other medical translation specialists, the CJK languages (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) account for a large part of our business. Chinese and Japanese, in particular, are in high demand from medical device and pharmaceutical clients and are regularly among our top 10 languages. Despite this, many clients know very little about Asian languages in general and CJK languages specifically.

The three languages have a lot in common. First and foremost, they use several thousand ideographic characters, historically dating back to the Chinese Han dynasty. These Han ideographs are called hanzi in Chinese, kanji in Japanese, and hanja in Korean.

The One Hour Translation Blog ran a good overview of how these languages differ from western and Indo-European languages. Here are some of the highlights from that post:

• Lack of plurals and singulars: Like with the English word "sheep", there is no plural form for nouns like "cat" in most eastern languages, particularly Japanese. You can get away with simply saying "cat" and referring to either one or a thousand felines by doing so. Context and the addition of a number with its "counter (a part of speech used to determine what’s being modified by the number) serve as a person's only clues in regards to the singularity or plurality of a given being, concept, or thing.
• Lack of gender distinction: Moreover, Asian tongues don't identify the gender of a given subject (that is, whether someone or something is of male, female, or neutral gender). Languages like Spanish usually refer to a male cat as "gato", while in English it's referred to as a "tomcat". There’s a lack of any such gender distinction in languages like Chinese or Japanese. Japanese translation services and other east languages translation services would probably need extra context research in order to tell whether a person being referred in the text is a he or she.
• Lack of inflection: Compared to languages like Spanish and French that have three moods (imperative, subjunctive, or indicative) and a multitude of verb conjugations, or Russian and German that have adjectives and nouns that continually change endings depending on what they are accomplishing in a sentence, or most European languages that have many "the" forms, words hardly ever get altered in any way, shape, or form in eastern languages.
• Lack of verb tenses: Only in a language like Japanese can "The dog died tomorrow" be grammatically correct. It’s a perfectly natural occurrence in Japanese syntax because as long as the event has already happened, the perfect tense can be used and an adverb of time can be casually added without any incident. Human translation becomes a key factor here in order to keep tabs on what the intended tense of a document is.
• Lack of word order: Korean and Japanese follow one rule in word order management-the verb always comes at the tail end of the sentence. As for Chinese and other Sino-based languages, the verb is reserved in the second position. Ergo, a normal Japanese phrase can usually be transliterated like a saying made by Yoda of Star Wars fame. Professional translation firms need to take particular note of this fact in order to keep themselves in business when translating Asiatic documents and correspondences.

All three languages can be written both left-to-right and top-to-bottom.

One interesting thing to note is that CJK languages take up the bulk of the Unicode character space. Check out Unicode's CJK FAQ for more details.

And one final tidbit: If you are interested in the stroke order used to produced CJK "characters", visit Wikipedia's excellent overview.


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ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized Chinese, Korean, and Japanese translation services to pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Contact us to learn more.

Whenever I type the word "resume", I cringe. I know it's wrong, I know it should have two é's, and I know that I'll be damned for all eternity because I am too lazy to figure out how to enter the accented characters...

There are all kinds of ways that software makers are trying to help folks like me. In Windows, for example, I could...

• enter Alt + 130 (but only on the numeric pad, please) or
• change the keyboard layout to the language in question (it's no fun trying to find your way around a U.S. keyboard programmed to act like a Czech one) or
• load the Character Map (if I can dig four levels deep to Start > Programs > Accessories > System) or
• when using MS Office and a few other programs, press Ctrl + ' + the desired letter.

But come on - none of these options are user-friendly. How am I going to remember any of them?

TypeIt to the rescue!

Simply place a link in your shortcut bar. After that, getting the right accented character or language-appropriate quotation marks takes four short steps:

1. Click on the short cut to go to www.typeit.org.
2. Select the language you need.
3. Click on the characters you want.
4. Copy and paste them to your application.

It won't win a Nobel Prize but if you have an occasional need to type non-English characters, TypeIt is a terrific time-saver. Voilà!

[Via the Global by Design blog!]


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Yesterday we looked at the case against customized medical translations.

As we pointed out, there are real organizational and resource challenges to overcome. But these don't change the fact that "medical translation" doesn't exist. Regulatory folks view their company, its products and translation services very differently from clinical researchers or marketers. And even though they work for the same company, they really don't care about other group's translation needs or processes.

Through the "product life cycle" concept represented in the above graphic, ForeignExchange delivers different, customized translation solutions for each PLC phase across a medical device or pharmaceutical company.

Of course, even within these PLC phases, there are many different kinds users but they do share:

• purchasing processes
• suppliers
• translation needs
• tools, TMs, glossaries
• personalities and backgrounds
• business objectives
• language & jargon
• quality expectations

For example, a clinical group will have a dedicated outsourcing group, won't benefit that much from TMs, and will value raw speed at least as much linguistic quality.

This is true for just about anybody in a clinical research organization - but very different from a labeling group working for the same company. Labeling professionals may not have a dedicated purchasing staff, they will make extensive use of technology (translation and labeling), and and their view of quality is determined by the fact that a single wrong letter can lead to an expensive and embarrassing product recall.

By customizing our approach (service delivery and marketing), we are able to talk to all of the different translation users across drug and device companies in there own language. And fundamentally, people trust people who are just like themselves.

Customized medical translations, according to our clients, adds real value: as practiced through our PLC, it allows clients to interface with ForeignExchange staff and translators who know about their unique challenges, requirements, and jargon.

What do you think? Do you see value in a customized approach to medical translation? Do you think customization is overrated?


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It turns out that it's not enough to "just" have a focus.

Our company, ForeignExchange Translations, is committed to supporting the translation needs of medical device and pharmaceutical companies. Right there, that's a tighter focus than 95% of translation companies have.

To better explain this to our clients and to improve our internal processes, we recently developed the concept of supporting our clients' product life cycle. The PLC allows for a role-based approach to marketing and service delivery and it neatly fits into and explains our industry focus.

But is it really a step forward? It could be viewed as an anachronism of a long-gone "stone age" era of translation - back when everything was one-off, personalized, and customized.

The main problem with a customized approach to medical translation is that there isn't one translation "buyer" in any pharmaceutical and medical device company. The role is shared across multiple people, from the supplier manager to the labeling manager, from the CIO to the software engineer, and from the strategic buyer to the translation coordinator. Even more disconcerting, any one role wears many hats.

With so many different constituencies in the purchasing process (never mind the startup and long-term relationship), and with many overlapping interests across these many groups, our sales team can drive itself crazy.

While ForeignExchange is the largest medical translation specialist, we are not a large company by traditional measures. How does a company like ours afford the processes, technology, and know-how needed for such a herculean effort?

In addition, should processes and quality expectations even be customized? Many translation practitioners argue the exact opposite - that the translation industry and its clients need more consistent and more robust quality, on each and every assignment.

And, finally, as we roll out our METRiQ translation quality system, we are getting a taste of the fact that customization is hard work! It's easier not to do it. And with the translation market growing anyway, why not take the easy way, without customization?

Tomorrow, we will take a look at the case for customized medical translations.


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Over the past couple of years, scandals around the use of ghostwriters to push drugs have rocked big pharma. Merck was implicated last year, Wyeth just now. While it may be that "everybody" is doing it, this sure doesn't help turn around the public's negative views of big pharma.

For translation service providers, this issue raises another concern: Am I liable if I translate a text that turns out to be ghostwritten and gets dragged through the press?

The short answer is no.

To begin with, translation is not all that common when it comes to scientific papers. If a translator or translation company is involved in this business, you would know. And you would have negotiated an indemnification clause with your client.

More importantly, translations and similar "editing services" have long been viewed as entirely legitimate.

Nonetheless, as the New York Times points out, medical journals are learning more about ghostwriting, and some editors have started asking authors harder questions. Who knows? In the future, this may lead to translators involved in the production of scientific papers to be identified.


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Not all pharma ads are sentimental; some are just plain funny.

BNET Pharma Insight recently wrote about how Pfizer's VIAGRA gets advertised around the world. Subtle and humorous in South Africa. Sexy in Mexico. Downright weird in China. Priceless.

For even more E.D. promotion, check out Gawker's How the little blue pill is sold around the world. Enjoy!


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July was a terrific month for our audio conference program. We were able to welcome several great new speakers and produced 14 events - the most ever for one month.

The top five events for July were:

1. Meeting the Requirements: Blending REMS Science & Operational Execution


2. Oncology Trials in 2009: Challenges & Innovative Approaches


3. Medicare Coverage of Clinical Trials: Opportunities & Obstacles


4. Effective Translation Process for Japan Regulatory Submissions


5. Getting Your Money’s Worth from Training and Development

If you have any suggestions for audio conference topics, send us a note!

Ahhh - so there is more than one way to learn!

This might seem obvious to anybody familiar with learning styles, but often comes as a surprise to folks developing international training courses.

While technical issues (using XML and UTF-16 solves most of them) and language issues (subject-matter expertise in translators and robust review process) are well understood, many drug and device companies experience problems rolling out U.S.-designed training courses overseas. Not because there might be translation issues but because the pedagogical model or culture-specific content do not fit the target audience.

There is the big concern that American-style learning doesn't travel well [PDF link]. Even "little things" such as how content is presented or the design of the user interface can make the course feel strange and distract the learner from the task at hand.

Effective global training programs (regardless of whether they are instructor-led or computer-based) anticipate these challenges by incorporating culturally appropriate - or culturally neutral - content that speaks to different learning styles. Examples include diagrams and pictures for visual learners, audio content for auditory learners, and hands-on tasks to keep the attention of any physical learners.

Similarly, to be effective across borders and cultures, training programs need to avoid things that will distract different learning styles. A visual learner will be distracted by untidiness and movement, an auditory learner will become easily distracted by sounds and noises, and a physical learner will not be productive if there is distracting activity going on around them.

To make their training programs more effective, course developers at pharmaceutical and device companies are still focusing on good language translation and technical wizardry. But they also work hard to push cultural and pedagogical considerations up-stream, into the early planning stages.

Related content:

• Culturally accessible e-learning
• Using Learning Styles to Successfully Engage All Learners
• Adapting eLearning to Chinese norms

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Beaker's Blog recently asked Best big pharma commercial ever? The topic of the blog post was the following Pfizer commercial:



I don't know if it's really the best commercial but it certainly brings a human side to disease management, the pharma industry, and Pfizer.

The commercial is also a good reflection of how the ForeignExchange team of employees and linguists views the work that we do. Our vision statement starts with the words ForeignExchange Translations saves lives, and we honestly believe that we help reduce human suffering around the world.

Hey, I'm no idealist - we work to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. But there are many different ways to earn a salary, and it's nice to make a difference while making a living. Thank you, Pfizer, for reminding us of that.


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Most of the time, translation is a peaceful and positive endeavor. Particularly in medical translation fields, clients and service providers view translation as a way to reduce human suffering around the world. Every once in a while, this idyllic situation gets jarring jolt.

That happened earlier today when I read how animal rights activists are suspected of targeting Novartis' CEO by burning down a house of his and desecrating the grave of his mother.

It reminds me how we received angry emails after promoting a series of audio conferences that touched on European regulatory updates related to animal and human tissue. Similarly, when we were talking to a particular prospect about taking on their translation work, they outright warned us that by working with them, we would become the target of animal rights protesters.

Unfortunately, in war zones translators get threatened or even killed. But in medical translation?

I sympathize with folks targeted by organizations like Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty. It's highly disconcerting when a conflict becomes personal.

At the same time, I understand where animal rights activists come from. As BNET's blog entry points out, if you want to spend an uncomfortable half hour figuring out what HLS is all about, check out Wikipedia.

Where do you stand on this? Do you avoid controversial topics in your work or do you take a damn the torpedoes approach?


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Over the course of July we have covered a wide variety of topics. Here are the posts that got the most attention over the past 30 days:

1. The "X" market for translations - A good discussion around segmentation in the translation industry.


2. The translation manager's dilemma - How to avoid the blame game around translation costs and schedules.


3. I say tomato, you say error! - The debate continues…


4. Compliance with new MDD - Device companies are scrambling to meet the new requirements - we are at T minus 8 months now.


5. 10 reasons why English is so difficult to translate - Broken English really is the language of the world.

Plus, Translator = professional writer just missed being in the top five. Happy reading!