Medical Translation Insight

We are interrupting our regularly scheduled blog posts to toot our own horn:

Medical Translation Insight has been named #66 on the Top Language Blogs list for 2010!



Since Medical Translation Insight squeaked onto the list at #98 last year, the language and technology "blogosphere" has really matured. There are more blogs, covering more diverse areas of the language business, publishing better articles.

We try to "keep up" by publishing relevant opinions, techniques, experiences, and insights. Many of our posts are related to specialized areas of medical translation but many of them are applicable across the entire professional language industry.

Thank you very much for your support and encouragement, dear readers!

Amy, Anabel, Andres, Bob, Jason, Megan, Paul, Sandra - The Medical Translation Insight team


Come along for the ride and and subscribe to Medical Translation Insight via email or RSS.

In the United States, Memorial Day is this weekend and, for most Americans, it signals the beginning of summer and vacation season.

While Americans relish their summer road trips and weekends at the beach, it is a well known fact that Europeans take more frequent and longer vacations. This can have a direct impact on European language translation projects.

Translation work still gets done, of course, but advance planning is more important than ever in June, July and August. Even preliminary information about timelines, languages and project specifications can help translation agencies schedule time with linguists in advance, preventing delays later.

Keep this in mind in the next few months and have a great summer!


ForeignExchange provides specialized medical translations for training courses developed by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Contact us to find out more!
 
 

We're at T minus 10 days for Localization World in Berlin. If you are still on the fence about going, take a look at the great program and stop dilly-dallying!

As usual, the first day of the conference features a series of specialized sessions. The life sciences section is divided into two sessions: a half-day overview of pharmaceutical translations and a full-day round table.

Localization World and the medical sessions have long been focused on medical device translations. It's exciting to see a detailed look at pharma translations on the agenda.

Pharma Translations: The Delicate Balance Between Regulations and Quality Requirements — How to Do More with Less focuses on the unique regulatory environment, the documents, the standards to follow, and other requirements to keep in mind and provides a real-world look at:

• Finding the balance between high-quality translation requirements and regulatory limitations
• Implications of PIM for translators of this XML-based system for submission and management of drug registrations
• How to produce 10,000 words in 27 languages between Day 210 (final version English documents) and Day 215 (submission deadline) of the EU registration procedure

For anybody that is involved with drug submissions in Europe (or would like to be involved), this sounds like a cannot-miss session!

If you do make it to Berlin, be sure to say 'hi' to ForeignExchange's Sandra La Brasca!


ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized medical translations for electronic as well as paper-based regulatory submissions. Contact us to find out more.
 
 

The pharmaceutical and medical device industries are not on the leading edge of social media. While this may be changing, the really good communities aren't being created by drug and device companies.

One example is EsTuDiabetes. Created by the non-profit Diabetes Hands Foundation, EsTuDiabetes recently won "Best Patient Community" in the Healthcare Engagement Strategy Awards 2010.

Another example is PatientsLikeMe (PLM), which helps people communicate and support each other while living with the disease. PLM's 65,000 members record their symptoms and match them with the medication they're taking, across 16 disease categories. Not only does this allow people to track what they've done, the site can help compare people's experiences.

This is where PatientsLikeMe has a shot at redefining medicine - and clinical research.

Imagine going to a doctor who doesn't have a cure for your disease. She may try different medications, at different doses, to help alleviate your symptoms. While trying to help, in these situations doctors are essentially throwing darts - they just don't know the best course of action.

What PLM does is to help find what's working best for everyone in the community, thereby treating the group's experience as real research data.

"Real" may be overstating it a bit though. The data is limited by the people who are contributing, by the lack of control groups, and by any sense of the completeness of patients' contributions. A couple of years ago, The New York Times excellent article Practicing Patients labeled PLM participants as "beta testers".

So, while there are clear opportunities for improved access to treatment options, there are also clear risks. No two patients are alike, and no two patients have truly identical diseases. A recent discussion on inVentiv Health's blog highlighted some of the risks and wonders how all of this impacts doctor-patient relationships.

To take it one step further: How will drug and device companies be impacted by this trend? Will they bristle at candid online discussions about side effects associated with their products? Or will they embrace social networks like PLM as a source of adverse event information?

(On this last point, check out slide 25 of "The Real Social Media Question", which was put together by Alex Butler, a communications manager at J&J's Janssen Cilag.)

And that's where things get even more exciting. Drug and device companies have huge infrastructures and investments in clinical research and safety reporting. Are they ready to up-end, or at least amend, those practices? Are they ready to listen?

Because listen, they should. MIT's Technology Review drove that point home in its most recent issue. Patients' Social Network Predicts Drug Outcomes shows that PLM had come to the same conclusion as a ALS-focused clinical study, except 18 months earlier and for a fraction of the cost.

The article goes on to say that PLM won't replace clinical trials just yet but can expand the patient population that can "have a say" on might not be eligible to participate in a clinical study.

The global nature of PLM also raises a translation question: Currently most members are English-speaking [PDF link] but that is sure to change. How will the PLM community and industry deal with foreign-language content or contributions written in broken or incorrect English?

This is a high-stakes undertaking, for patients, for PLM, for drug and device companies, for clinical research organizations, and also for translators. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

For more information, take a look at these related articles:

• Pharma blogs - doomed if you do, doomed if you don't
• Social media and the translation business, revisited
• Global clinical research - unethical or business necessity?
• Medtronic wants to be your friend

ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized medical translations for clinical research - from patient recruitment to ICFs and diaries, ForeignExchange supports sponsors in 40+ languages. Contact us for more information.
 
 

A couple of months ago, Ethan Shen of Gabble On called for participants in a machine translation research project. More than 1,000 reviewers answered his call. Ethan recently published his findings in summary and in full detail [PDF link].

The most interesting finding is related to brand bias. In other words, does the name of the machine translation tool affect the perceived quality? The answer is an unequivocal yes.

After survey participants noted this issue, Ethan adjusted the methodology:

"Midway through our data collection period, we implemented changes to our survey-taking platform to address brand and primacy biases in our experiment design pointed out by users."

The results of this change were significant:

"Across the general populace it can be seen that users selected Google over Microsoft Translator 21% more often when they knew the brands compared to when the brands were hidden."

And:

"Google relative brand bias effect over Yahoo Babelfish is even more stark..."

While these findings are fascinating, unfortunately, they kind of put the rest of the results in question. Ethan's report notes that "When you take this bias into account ... many more languages pairing would be hotly contested or favoring Bing Translator or Babelfish". That's too bad because it negates any real findings from the survey but hopefully phase 2 will address this.

This "hiccup" begs a different question though: Do translation clients and users perceive quality differently, depending on who provided the translation?

There seems to be ample anecdotal evidence for this:

• When you buy a new DVD player that was made in Japan or China, don't you automatically expect the translation to be of substandard quality?
• Which translation provider hasn't heard the phrase "this reads like it was translated by a machine", implying that MT always produces substandard quality.
• And who remembers IBM ingeniously playing on IT staff's fears with the axiom "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"?

So, does this brand bias hold true for providers of human translation services?

Will clients prefer company A's translation over company B's translation simply because it was provided by company A? And does any translation company have the type of "brand muscle" to influence clients' perceptions?


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Think Twitter and Facebook are only for the young and hip? Think again. Minneapolis-based Medtronic, an established, conservative company whose products are highly regulated, is embracing social media as a means to connect and educate patients and physicians and build brand loyalty. That's according to Ward Tongen, who is helping Medtronic's neuromodulation business enter the brave, sometimes scary, new world of "tweets", "likes", and "friends". Tongen spoke recently at a Twin Cities marketing professionals meeting.

Medtronic maintains an official Facebook fan page and multiple Twitter pages, where they post tidbits of newsworthy information about the company and engage patients, physicians and the public. It's turned out to be an effective way to educate people about the therapies that the company can provide.

In a competitive marketplace, any edge is crucial and Medtronic is betting on the skyrocketing growth of social media to win hearts and minds. For the company, this move into volatile online communities is a paradigm shift but a necessary one. After all, one Internet year is equal to four regular years and the company doesn't want to miss out.

Many patients who would be candidates for Medtronic's products are elderly and not plugged in to social media, much less the Internet. Tongen says that in this case, it is the caretakers to whom they market, the children and relatives of the elderly. But more and more grandmothers are signing up on Facebook everyday to see photos of distant grandkids and if Medtronic can engage them directly, it's a best case scenario.

It's easy to see why Medtronic is pursuing social media marketing when you read a post like this on the company's Facebook page, from the relative of a patient: "[He] feels better. Medtronic is the company that made his device. They had representatives from their company at the foot of his bed during the procedure that told the doctor what to do to fine tune it. Pretty marvelous, this technology. Like having a computer inside with a steel case!"

Medtronic has a team of search marketers, and Web metrics analysts whose jobs are to scour the Web and find out what people are saying about their company and plug into the online communities that are rapidly taking marketing out of the hands of the marketers. These days, the opinions of your Facebook friends are valued more than those of companies' copywriters. And that's why Medtronic wants to be your friend too.

If you have another five minutes to spare, take a look at the following more-or-less related articles:

• FDA atwitter about social media?
• Pharma blogs - doomed if you do, doomed if you don't
• Is Nintendo the next Medtronic?
• Pharma is (a little) less scared of social networking

Speaking of social media: Be sure to follow, friend, subscribe, and link to ForeignExchange's social media streams to catch all of our musings.
 
 

Asian business opportunities for medical device manufacturers have changed markedly over the past few years ago.

Singapore, for instance, announced its very first set of medical device regulations. By October 2010, all medical devices are to be registered and dealers (including importers and manufacturers) are required to be licensed.

The Singapore medical device market is small but wealthy: Valued at US$235 million, it is roughly the same size as Serbia and Lithuania. Per capita , it is in line with those of South Korea and Hong Kong.

While translation isn't usually a factor when selling devices in Singapore, rules for marketing devices have become stricter. A couple of years ago, Singapore's Health Sciences Authority (HSA) toughened its guidelines for advertising and promoting medical devices in Singapore.

The March 2010 issue of RAPS Focus [login required] has an updated overview of promotional rules in Singapore. (We previously covered some of the advertising rules in China.]

Here are some of the key principles cited in the article and based onHSA's 2009 regulatory guidance [PDF link]:

• All claims must be substantiated.
• Avoid comparisons with other products unless differences are scientifically established.
• Advertisements should not exploit the public's superstitious beliefs.
• Language should be simple to understand ... and avoid using medical jargon.
• Advertisements should not contain any offer to refund money to dissatisfied users.
• All advertisements must comply with the Singapore Code of Advertising Practice.

Bottom line? Watch your language!


ForeignExchange provides specialized medical translation and localization services to medical device companies - in Chinese and 40+ other languages. For your next international marketing campaign, ask for a detailed proposal.
 
 

What is a good translation?

I bet that even in the days of the Babylonians, translators were arguing about translation quality - how to recognize its existence (or absence) and how to deliver it. Yet here we are, 3,000 years later, and we still don't have a good answer.

There seem to be two camps in this debate: One group strongly believes that quality is subjective and in the eyes of the customer, while the other group holds to an absolute quality standard.

Practitioners who subscribe to the subjective view believe that selecting good translators, giving them the right tools and information, and establishing expectations with clients will ensure a quality deliverable.

It's hard to argue about the importance of these items. In fact, here at ForeignExchange, we used to subscribe to the same belief. But the trouble is that even with all of these (and other) controls in place, we would still occasionally miss the quality mark.

Folks who subscribe to an absolute quality standard often proclaim objectivity but this is often simply a different kind of subjectivity. Sentiments like "I wouldn't say it like that" or "we don't use that term" tend to be the yardsticks for quality.

In all of this, standards like ISO 9001, EN 15038, and ISO 13485 are helpful but no panacea - they contain much too much wiggle room.

But in the end, where does all of this get us? Probably to another 3,000 years of debating.

In an effort to change the conversation, we have been proponents of measurable quality. Sonia Monahan, ForeignExchange's Executive VP of Quality Systems, will present Bridging the Linguistic Quality Gap: How to Measurably Improve Translation Quality.

Sonia's presentation looks at how to move from an uncertain quality outcome to measurable, predictable quality. She goes into detail on how to utilize measurements to meet an organization's business objectives, not just translation objectives.

Instead of going around in circles, let's move the quality debate forward!

For further reading on this topic, take a look at:

• Quality is dead - long live measurable quality
• When is "good enough" good enough?
• Proving your quality [PDF link]
• Customized medical translation is a hairy knuckle dragger

ForeignExchange's METRiQ quality system provides medical device and pharmaceutical companies with known translation quality - on every assignment. Find out more!
 
 

Last week, noting a rash of recent announcements regarding machine translation (aka "MT") developments and crowdsourced translation efforts, we conducted a short straw poll. The question to translation service providers was simple:

What do you think will be more disruptive to your business - machine translation or crowdsourcing?

One week and 322 votes later, the answer is in:



It is interesting to see that translation service providers view advances in MT as a (slightly) larger threat than efforts to use crowds of volunteer translators.

Even more interesting are the comments and examples that we received via comments and email messages. Here is a sampling of email messages:

Adam recalled a machine translation gone bad and though that:

I think it is excusable for a client not to know what it is buying, but inexcusable for language professionals to be ignorant of what they are selling, and that applies to MT: the client bank had obviously been attracted to the low cost of the MT solution offered in this instance, but was not in a position to assess the quality of its output.

Several people commented that not all MT is equal. For instance, Kevin had this to say:

Most of the machine translation of Chinese to English I have ever seen is utter rubbish

In general, MT drew more and stronger opinions. Werner, for example, wrote that:

I'm not worried [about MT], and any client who believes that rubbish and uses such programs instead of human translators is not a loss to me

That may have something to do with the fact that "crowdsourcing" does not appear to be widely understood. Many, many people asked:

What does "crowdsourcing" mean?

And finally, Michael asked, quite succinctly:

Were the Luddites right?

Thank you to everybody who participated in the poll!


For daily updates, subscribe to Medical Translation Insight via email or RSS. If you need more frequent updates, follow us on Twitter at @fxtrans.
 
 

LexioPhiles is putting together their 3rd annual list of top language blogs - and they have once again included our own little blog under the "language professionals" category.

We are flattered that Medical Translation Insight was nominated alongside these other blogs. We provide a unique look at issues around medical translation, international regulations, and technology. Our articles range from timely to informative, from serious to funny, and cover issues near and dear to clinical, regulatory, marketing, and, of course, translation professionals.

If you enjoy our content, we would appreciate it if you could take two minutes to vote for our blog:

1. Go to www.lexiophiles.com/language-blog-toplist/top-100-language-blogs-2010-vote-for-language-professionals.
2. Scroll half-way down the page until you find "Medical Translation Blog".
3. Click on the round radio button to the left of our blog.
4. Scroll to the end of the list.
5. Click the VOTE button.

Over the last year, the language and technology "blogosphere" has really matured. There are more blogs, with more specializations, publishing better articles.

Given all of these reading options, we really do appreciate your support!


If you're just passing by, be sure to subscribe to Medical Translation Insight via email or RSS.

Val Swisher's blog post When is Good Enough, Good Enough? takes a different kind of look at the debate around translation quality.

She mentions how a conference attendee's question set off a lively discussion:

What are your thoughts regarding publishing translations of content that are not perfect? Are 'good enough' translations better than no translations at all?

I wasn't in the room but I bet the conversation quickly became polarized between arguments around "Quality is non-negotiable" and "Quality is in the eye of the beholder". (For the record, ForeignExchange's position is that the definition of "good" quality depends on the text being translated and that for quality to exist, it must be measured.)

In her post, Val shares three observations of her own:

1. Start with the end in mind. Write your content so it is easy to translate.
2. Decide which types of content are acceptable with ’good enough’ translations.
3. Globalization is young and, therefore, very forgiving. It won't always be this way.

It is interesting to get the perspective from a relative "newbie" to translation. Val's last point, in particular, is refreshing. I haven't heard anybody else talk about the fact that globalization is a quite recent development, and that expectations and business models around globalization (and with it, translation) are not yet fully formed.

What's your opinion - are there situation in medical translation when "good enough" suffices?


For a detailed proposal on your next clinical, regulatory, or marketing medical translation assignment, contact ForeignExchange Translations.
 
 

One of the exciting aspects of our audio conference program is how it allows us to keep our finger on the pulse of the industry. Sometimes, topics that we think will draw huge interest don't. And sometimes, events that we're not sure about end up being an amazing draw.

That kind of positive surprise is what happened with our recent event on periodic safety update reports. An interesting topic? Sure. A blockbuster? Probably not.

Boy were we wrong. The topic hit a nerve with clinical, regulatory, and pharmacovigilance folks and turned into one of our most popular events of the year.

So here are the top five events for April:

1. Periodic Safety Update Reports: Be Compliant and Cost Effective


2. 3 Steps to Successful Translation Management


3. Excel Spreadsheets and FDA Medical Device Regulations


4. Medicare Coverage of Clinical Trials: Opportunities & Obstacles


5. Thinking Beyond Compliance: Medical Device Product Development

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

Interested in other popular educational events? Take a look at our top audio conferences for March and February.


For a detailed proposal on your next clinical, regulatory, or marketing medical translation project, contact ForeignExchange Translations.

A couple of weeks ago, our article Good translations must be expensive argued that translation quality has very little to do with price - and vice versa.

We have received dozens of replies as blog comments, emails, and group postings. Readers generally felt strongly about this, one way or the other.

One of the responses that stood out was from Janet Rubin who provides German to English translation services (www.language2language.net). In Janet's experience, lower prices paid for linguistic work do, in fact, negatively impact the quality of final deliverables:

It's hard to resist the urge to make sweeping generalizations, but I can really only speak from experience.

Good translation products are the result of multiple layers of work. One of the basic layers is at least one proofreading by someone (preferably someone with translation experience) other than the main translator.

In my personal experience, every client I've dealt with that started to use "cheap" (or sometimes only "cheaper") translations started having issues with their proofreading afterward. Issues that affected the time - and money - eventually spent on the project.

As a translator, I have virtually GIVEN UP ON PERFORMING PROOFREADING because the quality of translations I've seen is so consistently LOW - especially in the case of jobs that I *know* were remunerated at what most European translators consider to be low levels. And I am not alone.

I have a pet theory about one major factor (in addition to the many other important factors) that influences the translation process and its price. It is generally accepted in this profession that the production of quality translations not only requires that the linguist have some sort of education in the language s/he is translating from (the more specialized the field, the more specialized the education), but also that s/he experience the source language in its true environment.

That is to say, the best translators are translating into their true native language, but have *lived* in the country of their source language at some time. And that takes a certain amount of resources.

Of course, this factor may indeed have less influence on certain sectors of the profession - perhaps those who type up instruction manuals day in and day out with little variation (although we've all seen how low the quality of so many instruction manuals has dropped), or people working with medical reports in a particular field who see the same words repeat over and over are less likely to produce poorer quality translations simply due to the fact that they haven't had much life experience where the source language is used on a daily basis.

But in the real world, prices are often a reflection of the education and experience (on a personal level) and of the time and process complexity (on a company level) that go into the final translation. After all, time is money. If the final translation is "cheap" or even "less expensive", I personally could not help but think - Why is their time not worth more?? Where did they cut corners??

In the fields I work in (law, finance, business, marketing), to produce a quality translation it is imperative to understand the vocabulary, register, tone, sense, idioms, double entendres, cultural references, etc. in the source text. And then the translator has to have the intellectual capacity to reproduce and reflect all of that in the target language. It takes education, experience, time, commitment, supervision, and practice.

And that doesn't even address the other layers of the process such as proofreading, revision, editing, and quality assurance (and in some cases formatting), all undertaken by people other than the translator (but hopefully in consultation at some point with the translator).

Most people/organizations who can do all this well are putting in a lot of work - and have already spent a lot of time, effort, and money to get that far.

Although a high price tag is no guarantee of good quality, the people/organizations who do all that work are generally going to reflect this in the price they ask.

Well put, Janet.

What do you think?


ForeignExchange's METRiQ quality system provides medical device and pharmaceutical companies with measurable, known translation quality - at a lower cost. To learn more, contact ForeignExchange Translations.
 
 

B.J. Epstein, a past contributor here at Medical Translation Insight, posted a list of some good introductory texts on translation. As she mentions in her post, these will serve as a useful academic basis for a deeper understanding of what translation is and what translators do.

We're taking the liberty of featuring her list here:

Mona Baker: In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation

Basil Hatim and Ian Mason: Discourse and the Translator

Clifford E. Landers: Literary Translation: A Practical Guide

André Lefevere: Translating Literature: Practice and Theory in a Comparative Literature Context

Jeremy Munday: Introducing Translation Studies

Peter Newmark: Approaches to Translation

Peter Newmark: A Textbook of Translation

Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber: The Theory and Practice of Translation

Christiane Nord: Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained

Gideon Toury: Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond

In addition, we suggest that you take a look at the books that we've covered over the past 18 months.

Do you have any recommended reading to add to the list?


For a detailed proposal on your next clinical, regulatory, or marketing medical translation assignment, contact ForeignExchange Translations.
 
 

For medical translators experienced in European regulatory submissions, QRD templates are an important tool of their trade. Even if you are not regularly involved in these kinds of projects, these "Quality Review of Documents" templates are a good resource.

QRD templates are a set of documents whose main objective is to set out standard phrasing, terminology, and stylistic preferences for product information (Summary of Product Characteristics, package leaflets, labeling) as well as to provide guidance on layout. These documents are currently available in 24 languages (22 EU languages plus Icelandic and Norwegian).

Working with these templates isn't always clear-cut though. Some of the recommended headings and phrases lead to questions during readability tests.

Here are some sample challenges that we've encountered:

1) Grammatical errors
English: Contraindications
Maltese in QRD template: Kontra-indikazzjonijiet
Correct Maltese: kontraindikazzjonijiet (the latest decisions on Maltese spelling/grammar is available from the Maltese Language Council [PDF link])

2) Inconsistencies between text in product information and the templates
English in template: Product Information Leaflet
English in product information to translate: Product Leaflet

3) Incorrect terminology
English: European Medicines Agency
French in QRD template: Agence Européenne du Médicament
Correct French: Agence européenne des medicaments (this is according to the Interinstitutional Style Guide, which, interestingly enough, gets recommended by EMA itself)

4) Typos introduced by QRD members after their review of the translation

So, what is a medical translation professional to do? Follow Golden Rule #1: Be honest. If you see an error or discrepancy, report it.

Sounds obvious but a lot of translators assume that the QRD templates are "non-negotiable". This is not the case. Linguists would never replicate errors in any other kind of translation project, so why do so in the case of QRD templates?

Firstly, sometimes inconsistencies may arise between product information in the templates and the files received for translation, like example 2 above. Perhaps in this example, it stems from an oversight on the source technical writer's part. But this could also be because, in the words of the EMA, the templates "are by no means a comprehensive guide to the information required to be included in the product information". Each company will draw up their product information based primarily on the template but there may be amendments to adapt the information to the product. Depending on the product, information could be added or omitted.

The best thing to do is to speak up and seek guidance from the client. If you don't report the discrepancies, more likely than not, your client will come back to you questioning why your translation differs from the QRD template.

Secondly, the QRD Working Group aims to provide guidance to the EMA on linguistic aspects relating to product information. Their objective, like ours as linguists, is quality and readability. For this reason, the QRD template has gone through various rounds of consultation and opinion from patients, pharma professionals, etc.

But this doesn't mean that some errors have not slipped through the net. Obvious errors such as typos should be brought up to your client, justified, and rejected in favor of correct spelling, terminology, and grammar. It is important that any errors are brought to light. Proactive consultation with the client and, if necessary, QRD members will save overall time and improve the usability of translations.

And finally, the QRD template is in the process of getting a face lift. A couple of weeks ago marked the "end of consultation deadline" for comments on the QRD template. Does that mean, speak now or forever hold your peace? Not quite.

This day may have signaled the deadline for comments on the QRD template, but that doesn't mean we should accept everything at face value, and cease in our endeavor to continually improve the quality of our regulatory submission translations.

Remember the Golden Rule, and you won't go wrong.

[Thanks, Anabel, for the content!]


ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized medical translations for electronic as well as paper-based regulatory submissions. Contact us to find out more.
 
 

It seems like a day does not go by without some news about companies using crowdsourced translations or some new machine translation improvement. Today alone I read about software powerhouse Adobe testing crowdsourcing in China and DocTranslator bringing further improvements to automatic in-browser translation.

So far software and social media companies have taken the lead on crowdsourcing. And machine translation still requires a big up-front investment, relegating it primarily to the real of "really big" organizations.

But it's only a matter of time until a pharmaceutical or medical device company deploys one or both of these technologies. And why not? For instance, as drug and device companies (slowly) become more active in social media, their international audience will look for local-language support - and will be happy to help.

It's too early to tell whether this will be bad news or good news to service providers. Chances are, it will be a bit of both. But one thing that is certain, is that these technologies will be highly disruptive for providers of medical translation services.

What's your take on this? Which of these developments will prove to be more disruptive in the area of medical translation?

For daily updates, subscribe to Medical Translation Insight via email or RSS. If you need more frequent updates, follow us on Twitter at @fxtrans.
 
 

Welcome to our April roundup. This is the time when we shine the spotlight on our most-read articles for the past month.

There have been some good posts during April. Many of the ones that received the most attention had to do with access to language services in the healthcare space and with new terminology/glossary resources.

Please take a moment to read through these posts:

1. Medical glossary in nine European languages - It's nice to see that there was a lot of interest in this terrific terminology resource
2. 50% of translated Spanish medicine labels have errors - Wow: 50%!?!?
3. Good translations must be expensive - Mix a bit of reverse psychology with a controversial topic and you get a whole lot of strong opinions
4. Removing security from multiple PDF files - PDFs are omnipresent in today's medical translation world; this article makes working with them a bit easier
5. Patients at risk due to lack of translations - Another look at the scary situation for non-English-speaking pharmacy customers in the U.S.

Looking for more good stuff to read? Take a look at our top articles for March, February, and January. Happy reading!

Labeling and regulatory affairs experts as well as representative from technology companies attended the two-day ExpertForum on Labelling, SmPC & PIM [PDF link] in rainy Munich. They all came to learn more about PIM (Product Information Management) and how it will be implemented and will affect their business. PIM has been talked about for almost 10 years now but no one seemed sure it would actually be implemented.

Despite some earlier questions, it is clear PIM is here to stay, and the EMA is firmly standing by its recommendation that PIM will need to be used for all submissions within the Centralised Procedure. Sure, everyone agrees that the timelines have slipped mostly due to implementation and performance challenges but by 2011 PIM will be prevalent for handling the labeling for new drug applications in the EMA.

What are the advantages of PIM? It provides structured XML format for labeling content ensuring that documents are compliant with the QRD all of the time – with the current process, it is estimated that over 42% of the time spent on submissions in spent fixing formatting issues. Additionally, PIM encourages reuse of content, making submissions more consistent and compliant.

The challenges that remain lie mainly in the technology, the authoring tool (Light Authoring Tool, LAT) that is currently provided by EMA for PIM does not provide the functionality nor the flexibility that the users need, the PRS (PIM Review System) in its current version is not scalable, its performance is lackluster and its intended users (National Competent Authority, NCA) are questioning its usability. Last but not least migration of existing product documentation will require some planning and some time.

But the tide is definitely turning, the PRS is being revamped and its new version (6.0) is expected to be released by the end of Q3. Technology suppliers are coming to the rescue by providing authoring and editing platforms as well as integrating with tools to streamline the translation process. With seven products currently going through PIM within the Centralised procedures and major pharmaceutical companies willing to invest the time and resources to work with PIM, it is safe to say that PIM is becoming a reality!

For more information about PIM, please visit the EMA web site.


ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized medical translations for electronic as well as paper-based regulatory submissions. Contact us to find out more.
 
 

As the debt crisis in Greece turns deadly, it's becoming increasingly clear that this is no longer "just" a financial issue.

Beyond the human toll, the financial turmoil is starting to hit the pharma business and risks putting pressure on translation companies and other suppliers to pharmaceutical companies.

Already last week, drug makers started voicing concerns about the crisis. Those worries have now been confirmed: PharmaTimes reports that drug prices in Greece are plummeting, and this is likely to have a negative impact on pharma companies' business across Europe.

The cash-strapped Greek government is cutting the prices on 1,551 medicines by more than 20%. While this is bad news in and of itself, it's worse because of "contagion" fears.

Just like the financial crisis, low drug prices in Greece are likely to have a spill-over effect on prices in the rest of Europe. According to FiercePharma, EU countries set maximum drug prices based upon prices in other EU countries. Combined with the fact that EU trade rules allow drug wholesalers to buy pharmaceuticals in low-priced markets and resell them elsewhere will "cause a dangerous domino effect on prices of medicines in several European countries".

If this scenario does unfoldNow that this scenario has started to unfold, it is likely that pharma companies will make further cuts to their translation spend and budgets. Get ready for a lot of hand-wringing and pencil-sharpening among medical translation service providers!

[Via Pharmalot]


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Instructor-led training can be a terrific tool for global drug and device companies. But it is no secret that instructor-led training is expensive.

For instance, PharmaExec.com reported that 85% of sales training budgets in the pharmaceutical industry is allocated for travel and logistics - and only 15% is spent on content. With those kinds of economics, it's no wonder that the use of eLearning continues to grow.

Companies are realizing that eLearning provides an easy way for people from different parts of the world to contribute cultural insights into the most effective way to operate globally and harvest knowledge from all corners of the world. The contributions and insights that stem from e-Learning sessions can open the lines of communication between groups and countries that were isolated before due to distance. eLearning can help create a unified vision, communicate values across corporate and country boundaries, and develop common skills for a company when its workforce is spread throughout the world.

Despite all of these advantages, many device and pharmaceutical companies are struggling to prepare training teams for the shift from an instructor-led training environment to eLearning.

Many teams are short on the required know-how to create engaging course ware. Instead, they launch "page turners" that fail to engage the workforce, lack the learning integrity that leads to performance results, and risk wasting the company's technology investment (e.g., Learning Management Systems, authoring tools, and virtual classroom platforms).

Christine Duckworth of Intrac Design provides a quick reference guide to developing effective eLearning. Christine's audio conference helps training teams address the skills gap and to deliver the engaging eLearning courses that management and the target audience expect.

If you are thinking about moving into eLearning or are less than satisfied with the results of your eLearning program, be sure to take a listen to Christine's presentation!

For more eLearning resources, take a look at some of our other training articles:

• eLearning: minimizing costs and frustrations when localizing voiceovers
• Culturally accessible e-learning
• Authoring without borders

ForeignExchange provides specialized medical translations for training programs developed by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Contact us to find out more!

These days, everybody is looking to save money. And if you can accumulate some green karma points at the same time, who wouldn't be interested in that?

Translations and publishing are paper-intensive businesses. Many translation providers are recycling paper and toner cartridges. Some are configuring print drivers to output two pages on a single sheet or enabling "draft" mode to use less ink.

And now there is another way to do the right thing and save some money.

Because different fonts require different amounts of ink to print, you could be buying new printer cartridges less often if you used Century Gothic rather than Arial. For individual translators, this could add up to annual savings of $20 or so. Drug and device companies could save thousands of dollars with a simple font changes.

The words to good effect blog wrote up a good overview of a test conducted by Printer.com, which compared ink consumption for different fonts. Here are their top 10 green fonts:



Century Gothic was found to use 30% less ink than Arial, used as a benchmark, and less even than Ecofont, a free typeface that promises to consume up to 20 percent less ink. For us font geeks, this is exciting stuff!

Of course, the greenest way to save on ink is not to print at all. More and more translation providers bypass printing altogether in favor of PDFs.

[Thanks to Holly Behl for the heads-up!]


ForeignExchange's METRiQ quality methodology allows drug and device companies to save money through measurable, known medical translation quality.