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Translation and Localization in Life Science industry

Pharmaceutical and medical device sectors today need translation and localization services for marketing and promoting their products on a global level. The demand for skilled language specialists with scientific expertise is increasing tremendously in recent times, as life science companies seek to make a foray across different countries and continents.

According to a market research survey conducted by a noted American firm, the specialized niche sector of translation and localization of life sciences was worth US$75.8 million in 2009. Moreover, translation and localization of medical devices was worth US$100.4 million. Interestingly, the European pharmaceutical translation sector was worth US$265.11 million in 2009, given that there were more than 10,000 pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. In other words, life science firms are today completely dependent on translation and localization services for overseas sales and marketing.

Language service providers (LSPs) need to have formal education in life sciences to work in this booming sector. The pharmaceutical and life science industry primarily consists of the following components: pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and clinical research. Translation and localization of life science is a very challenging field as the translated technical literature has a direct impact on the overall health of patients.

Very high accuracy levels are required in this field, and the specialized translators are trained scientists with bilingual fluency. Translators for life science products cannot be mere language specialists, who are mostly hired for translation of consumer products. The pharmaceutical and life science industry requires translation and localization for the following segments:

Pharmaceuticals:  Each drug requires documentation and packaging literature in the pharmaceutical industry. This includes information about the efficacy, side-effects, dosage, contraindications, etc. This information is critical in the sense that it is referred by doctors, nurses, and patients. For overseas sales and promotion of these drugs, translation and localization of this literature requires specialists as it is indeed a matter of life and health.

Medical devices: These are used extensively in hospitals, healthcare research centers, and laboratories. Medical devices are marketed and sold in various countries; technical documentation and literature of these medical devices has to be translated in various languages. Each word has to be precise and accurate so as to correctly convey the literature to healthcare professionals across various countries and continents. Translation and localization of medical devices has to be done by trained medical professionals as these devices are exclusively used by healthcare professionals.

Clinical research: These studies are conducted by healthcare research organizations in various countries. Nevertheless, these research studies are usually published in English journals; therefore, skilled healthcare professionals with bilingual expertise are required for translation of these clinical research studies. The findings of these studies are very important in the drug discovery process.

According to multinational companies in life sciences, the demand for translation and localization of their products is very high in Asian countries, such as China, Japan, Korea, and India. This is because the general population speaks regional languages in these countries; hence, the demand for scientifically trained translators is very high in these countries.

In other words, all the technical documentation of pharmaceutical products has to be translated from English to major Asian languages, such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korea, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, etc. Translation and localization is not just limited to drug documentation but also for clinical trials and studies as the participants are fluent in regional languages. Translation and localization of life sciences is a booming business in Asian countries.

Some of the important findings of market research study are as follows:

In life science industry, the demand for translation and localization experts with advanced scientific/medical education is increasing exponentially in European and Asian countries.

Most life science companies hire high quality translation and localization experts, so economical pricing is not the main criterion for hiring these experts.

As the 100% accuracy levels are required in this industry, it is very difficult to find high quality experts.

Most pharmaceutical and life science companies evaluate work samples of these vendors; they do not merely hire vendors with ISO certifications as they have low level of confidence in the accuracy of translators.

Life science companies hire translation vendors with the following qualities: high quality work samples, scientific/medical education, technical expertise, and high quality.

 

 

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The nexus between predatory journals and academia: the result is bad science and medicine

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With highly strict standards of publication set by SCI journals (Elsevier, Springer, Nature, Wiley, etc.), the acceptance rate of manuscripts is just 15%. This puts a lot of stress on young researchers in academia. Failure to publish papers in these noted journals spells a doom on their career in research and academia.

Thus, it is a classic case of where supply (manuscripts) exceeds the demand (acceptance rate by publishers). The number of people graduating from most colleges in the USA with terminal degrees (PhD) far exceeds the availability of research jobs in academia.

To cash on this opportunity, today there are many “predatory” journals that will publish any manuscript for a royalty. These predatory journals have total disregard for the authenticity of the research study and would even publish a completely plagiarized paper. This trend is often witnessed in community colleges as they do not receive sizable federal grants for the advancement of their career in scientific research. Most predatory journals would charge about some hundreds of dollars for publication under the garb of the word “Open Access” or “Hybrid publishing.”

How do academics from less known community colleges fall prey to these journals? Well, most of these predatory journals have names that have strong resemblance to that of famous journals. They quite often provide bulk discounts for publication of many manuscripts and also invite these academics for workshops and seminars. We found that despite knowing the poor credentials of these journals, researchers oblige to have a symbiotic relationship with these predatory journals. Scientific credibility is not just lost but wrong science is also promoted by these predatory journals, which means our future generations would have to suffer due to these unlawful practices in academia and research.

According to the latest sting operations carried out by a scribe of Nature publisher, the number of predatory journals now stands at 10,000. This implies that there are as many predatory journals as legitimate ones. For example, consider the legitimate journal publisher by Springer “The Journal of Economics and Finance.” The predatory journal by an independent publisher is named similarly as “The Journal of Finance and Economics.”

Predatory journals have minimum cost of publication and earn good revenue. They do not have peer reviewer and editorial team. Most journals only publish papers online, with some of them having a “print on demand” model as well. One of the tricks that these journals do is by having names resembling standard journals of SCI. Moreover, they also claim to have been indexed by Google scholar while sending direct marketing emails to academicians all over the world. It is important to note that “Google scholar” is a search engine, so being indexed by Google does not mean Google has authenticated the credentials of the predatory journal. This is something most academics are not wary of, unless they have a solid background in computer science.

One of the detrimental results of the naivety of researchers is the proliferation of bad science. To make matters worst, these publishers also include the name of researcher in the list of presenters/speakers at a conference for a hefty fee. The academic may OR may not attend the conference, but the conference can be certainly enlisted in the academic resume of the researcher. Most of the so-called conferences are published at respectable venues of universities and hotels. In reality, these conferences are held in dingy hotels undergoing renovation, with more than 50% academics giving it a miss.

Do predatory journals have a detrimental effect on the career of researchers? Nope. A recent survey and analysis done by a leading researcher at his university threw open a can of worms: ten faculty members had got promoted this year and nine of these academics had published papers in both SCI (legitimate) journals as well as predatory journals. In fact, many of them had published at least four papers in predatory journals, which explains why these predatory journals are making good money despite being completely shady and unethical in their practices.

Conclusion:

Academics are promoted when their resume is loaded with a long list of publications. The list of published papers may be long, but the authenticity of journals is never verified. In totality, academics are now relieved that they do not have to stress on publishing in legitimate journals having strict standards. Bad science is being promoted by academia with the help of predatory journals, and there needs to be a regulatory authority to stop this menace in research industry.