medicaltranslations.gr
Better Medical Outcomes with Accurate Translations

This was the advertisement headline for an infant formula in the Netherlands. Although these words might take an English speaker by surprise, the actual meaning in Dutch is “Mama, (buy me) that one, that one, that one… Please.”

Words that look and sound the same can often have radically different meanings in different languages. While it might seem amusing from a marketing context, the same cannot be said for an industry like pharma that develops life-saving medicines. Whether it is a translation error in a clinical trial questionnaire or a wrong word choice on a product label, it can have potentially adverse consequences for patients. It is incredibly crucial to record and translate product information clearly and accurately, from development to commercialisation.

However, having a specialised translation team significantly adds to a pharma organisation’s workforce expenditure and further complicates the organisation chart. While outsourcing is an option, these firms do not want their proprietary product information to be scattered around the globe to potential translators who may or may not be available to take on a proposed job and prefer setting strategic partnerships tailored to their needs.

medicaltranslations.gr a provider of in-house translation services solves this problem by deploying dedicated, expert teams allocated directly and specifically to each client.

“We work with pharma organisations to ensure that all medical information generated from drug development to commercialisation is translated accurately into Greek from English and vice versa,” says Maria Alexopoulou, managing director of medicaltranslations.gr.

The company’s path to excellence was paved by Alexopoulou when she was an academic linguist. As she switched to pharma linguistics, Alexopoulou noticed the translation challenges experienced by pharma organisations in Greece. With the globalisation of the pharma industry, organisations had to depend on linguists for translations, who often lacked domain knowledge and found it challenging to accurately translate complex medical terminologies, while adhering to the strict regulations and guidelines of pharma regulatory agencies. Alexopoulou realised that one had to be part of the pharma industry to truly understand the medical and clinical challenges that need to be addressed during drug development. With the aim of deploying specialised in-house translation teams with exceptional language skills and precise medical knowledge, Alexopoulou laid the foundation for medicaltranslations.gr in 2005.

The company kicked off its pilot engagement in 2007 with one of the top three pharma companies in Greece. The speed, efficiency, and accuracy delivered by medicaltranslations.gr convinced the client to extend the collaboration and support its growth and expansion over the years. The collaboration served as the springboard for the company to launch its specialised pharma translation services across the nation.

Bringing Precision to Medical Content with Translations

medicaltranslations.gr is now cementing its position as a critical puzzle piece in the drug development process for pharma organisations across Greece. The company has established an in-house team of field experts with varying specialisations, each of whom studies the different phases of the drug development from their own perspective before accurately translating the product-relevant content created by the client teams. When the translation of particular terminologies is unclear, medicaltranslations.gr brings in additional assistance from industry experts to proofread the translation before signing-off the file. Throughout the process of translating, reviewing, and proofreading, medicaltranslations.gr leverages a collaborative approach of using cloud-based tools, which maintains utmost consistency in medical terminologies. The accuracy of the teams’ translation capabilities is augmented by state-of the-art, proprietary software, which acts as a second layer of ‘defence’ to ensure ultimate precision and accuracy in the translated medical content.

medicaltranslations.gr kicks off its client engagements with an introductory meeting, where the field team familiarises itself with the client’s workflow and product development. The medical specialist of medicaltranslations.gr oversees and verifies the industry terminologies. Its language specialist complements the medical jargon with simplified linguistic input. Throughout each phase, the company sets deadlines and milestones on their cloud software, which is also accessible by the client, if they wish so. As a result, medicaltranslations.gr is able to deliver the translated content in alignment with the drug development projects of clients, never missing the critical deadlines.

Leveraging these competencies, medicaltranslations.gr supports clients throughout the lifecycle of their pharmaceutical products, starting from the clinical trial phase, translating hundreds and thousands of words and simultaneously amending the content in a pre-specified and heavily-regulated timeframe. The company’s easy-to-understand content translation even bolsters the marketing phase, ensuring that the physicians and patients get the best understanding of the product.

Even when pharmaceutical firms prepare their own translated content during clinical trials, (especially patient questionnaires), medicaltranslations.gr helps them review and verify the content. Especially for the Greek translation, the company collaborates with the client to develop the relevant content and validate it in adherence to the functional assessment of chronic illness therapy (FACIT) methodology.

This methodology enables it to bring equivalent meaning and measurement to multinational terminologies through the use of a decentred model of translation.

Enhancing Medical Training for Pharma Sales Reps

The capabilities of medicaltranslations.gr also extend to the training of sales reps. The company empowers pharma organisations to facilitate effective medical training and impart a thorough understanding of the product’s clinical trials, the disease that it alleviates or cures, its effect on the human anatomy, and its role in various diagnoses and therapies. By enhancing their product knowledge, specifications, and usage, medicaltranslations.gr helps the sales reps present the pharma products in a more eloquent manner to hospitals and healthcare centres.

The company also translates and localises all relevant training modules into Greek, enriching the content with Q&As, objection handlers, knowledge board games, and profiling questions. The company ensures that the translated content enables sales reps to convey the information eloquently and accurately.

As Alexopoulou says, “An easier learning process enables sales reps to digest as much product information as possible to better represent their organisation without the usual training hassle.”

medicaltranslations.gr also assists in pharma sponsored disease training for patients, helping patient organisations deliver all the crucial information in the language they understand while ensuring utmost accuracy and consistency.

Paving New Paths for Medical Translation

The competencies of medicaltranslations.gr as a complete pharmaceutical translation agency are garnering recognition and trust from pharma organisations, generic drug companies, CROs, advertising firms, and multi-language vendors from and beyond Greece. The company is now implementing new technologies and expanding the diversity of its translation services across the global pharma space. The accuracy and precision brought by medicaltranslations.gr to the medical content will certainly prompt the pharma industry to raise their content standards and ensure a seamless flow of information between medication developers and consumers, whatever language they speak.