Life Science Translation: A Matter of Life and Death
When translating documents and materials in the medical field, it is crucial to understand and reflect the nuances and shades of meaning in the texts. Any error in a translation can have potentially devastating consequences. Life sciences is also one of the most dynamic industries. Things can change quickly, and these changes must be tracked and reflected in the target languages during the localization process.
It is not uncommon for a CRO to have multiple translators working on the same project at once. However, if their work is not interconnected, turnaround times may increase significantly (due to the need to review and align the different segments). The lack of automation and the need for human intervention may result in a higher probability of errors.
Using a TMS like memoQ can mitigate the linguistic challenges the life science industry faces and help medical organizations operate globally.
Localization Challenges at PSI
Before they implemented a TMS, one of the most important translation challenges PSI Translations team had faced was the lack of an accessible and easily searchable repository of translations. They often had to spend extra time translating or revising similar content or searching for the translation or a term that had already been translated.
It was obvious that a step towards a shared and well-organized repository would enable the PSI Translations team to maintain consistency across multiple documents processed in parallel without time-consuming discussions and consultations.
The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship
After considering several translation management solutions, PSI chose memoQ.
“The main reason we chose memoQ over other solutions on the market is that it is user-friendly and has a lot of features that can be adapted to specific workflows and offers a variety of solutions. The LiveDocs feature is what made it stand out among the competitors, providing the possibility of using our existing libraries and having live access to our documents.”
Elena Mikrioukova
Head of Translation Department
Besides the ease of use for their translators, corporate reasons were also considered. Data security was an important criterion for PSI, so the option to have the program deployed on PSI’s own servers was appealing to them.
Finally, user support was also a big factor, so, like all our clients, the PSI team was provided with constant support from the get-go. The team at PSI felt that “good communication and support is something that the memoQ team values and that can be a strong foundation for our future collaboration.”
Results After Implementing memoQ
According to PSI, LiveDocs is the feature they benefit from the most. Working with memoQ, the PSI team can now “ensure consistency both on the level of single terms, as well as across documents and projects, thanks to translation memories and LiveDocs. We can perform quality control of our translations, be able to reuse and revise translations by our peers, thus achieving high level of quality, and handle our projects more efficiently.”
They are also able to deliver high-quality translations in less time. Sharing TMs across translators allows them to build in consistency without having to review translations multiple times. Translation memory has been instrumental in reducing turnaround time by up to 50% in some standard documents (i.e., types of documents that have a high percentage of repeated content, such as series of similar Informed Consent Forms).
With non-standard documents, translation is 10 to 20% faster, depending on the amount of text repeated within a document or the availability of documents on a similar subject in translation resources like TMs or LiveDocs.
Since PSI wanted to take full advantage of the software to customize workflows specific to the life science industry, it was also important for them to have a business services team to rely on. About memoQ support, they said:
“They are responsive, genuinely willing to help, take time to discuss, analyze and solve our issues. Jure Dernovšek and Ulrich Fricke have always been available whenever we stumbled across any obstacles, from the onboarding process until now, when we are using memoQ daily.”
Now that they have implemented memoQ, PSI can dedicate more time to what they do best: constantly deliver quality projects on time and on budget.
If your enterprise also works in the life science industry and you would like to optimize your localization workflows, please contact the memoQ sales team. We are happy to help you find the optimal solution for your use case.
Impact
About PSI-CRO
PSI is a full-service, global contract research organization (CRO) with corporate headquarters in Zug, Switzerland. Their main goal is to support biotech sponsors by consistently meeting deadlines and delivering clinical trials with no delay or even ahead of time. They take pride in their 90%+ repeat and referral rate for clients and their extensive and diverse employee base. PSI is dedicated to becoming the best CRO available on the market, in terms of both quality and staff.
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