Translation of pharmaceutical dossier – Background
A constant but moderate flow of work. This is the dream of every translation agency Project Manager. However, on occasions there can be sudden and unexpected peaks in our workloads and when this happens it is necessary to fall back on strategies that have been tried and tested over the years. The case study below is an interesting recent example:
A leading world-famous pharmaceutical company, a long-term client of ours, commissions us with the English to Italian translation of a dossier of international importance. The document is substantial: it is 280 pages long and includes text and images for a total of around 94,000 words. The dossier contains strictly scientific and clinical information, but also a section on financial data. The text is divided into 6 modules, each of which including around a dozen pages dedicated to the index, bibliography and glossary.
Turnkey translation – The challenge
The timeframe for delivery is quite tight: one week. A really limited amount of time for such a big job, also because the requested service does not just consist of the translation of the text but involves a very complex work cycle that begins with the layout of the texts to make them editable, continues with the translation, and finishes with a peer review and final QC including the standardisation of the terminology.
Translation memories and interoperability – The solution
The job is entrusted to one of our best Project Managers, who plans out every phase: the Landoor Desktop Publishing department is given the job of laying out the document in Word. For the English-Italian translation a team of 5 translators/revisers (all qualified on the basis of our ISO 9001 and 17100 procedures) and proofreaders specialising in the sector is set up. Each one is assigned a portion of text according to their availability. To optimise the work flow specific translation memories (TM) and termbases are created for the project and shared on the server: thanks to this technology, the translations carried out by the translators are visible to their colleagues in real time, enabling them to translate similar or identical phrases in a uniform way. The TM is an important reference tool, guaranteeing the terminological and stylistic consistency of the entire text. The work of the translators is delivered in batches so the proofreaders can carry out their work simultaneously. All members of the team are obviously in contact at all times on the team collaboration systems where they can share opinions and information both on common terminology and the technologies to adopt to manage the files. In the meantime the Client has also asked that the non-editable images be translated and so the DTP department has been involved again to provide the translators with the texts contained in the images.
An impeccable translation – The result
The Client said they were happy with all aspects of the service, and were particularly appreciative of the quality and uniformity of the work even with such tight deadlines.
