18 Oct Pharma translation and Pharmaceutical business, a winning pair

Today, medical translators use databases and translation memories to improve consistency and quality. The value of expert translations is clear in the pharmaceutical industry. Drugs and medicines require standardized translations that are carefully checked and back-translated when necessary. In pharmaceutical business, accuracy is essential. Machine translation alone cannot guarantee the quality needed for medical content. Information must also remain simple and easy for patients to understand. When lives are at stake, every precaution matters.

The pharmaceutical business in the 21st Century

During the 1950s and 1960s, new pharmaceutical regulations transformed the industry. As regulations increased, the responsibility of medical and pharmaceutical translators also grew. Pharmaceutical companies not only had to develop safe products and clinical trials, but also present all documentation in the language required by each country’s authorities. This information had to clearly demonstrate compliance with local regulations.

Many of these changes aimed to prevent tragedies such as the thalidomide case. Drug Acts, safety committees, and stricter regulations appeared during the mid-20th century. In the 21st century, requirements continue to grow. Today, pharmaceutical companies must provide accurate packaging, dosage guides, and instructions in multiple languages. These translations must be both precise and easy to understand to avoid patient confusion.

How can pharmaceutical companies keep up with these changes? Two important trends have appeared in the industry. First, the growing number of regulations encouraged the creation of specialized companies. This includes CROs for clinical trials and pharmaceutical translation agencies that help businesses comply with multilingual requirements.

The second trend is more recent. After years of outsourcing services to reduce costs and improve quality, some large pharmaceutical companies are buying smaller specialized businesses. These companies often keep their identity and services, but they become part of a larger corporate group.

Interestingly, many smaller pharmaceutical companies have also outsourced their medical and pharmaceutical translation services. Standardized and effective translations have helped them expand internationally and sell products in global markets.

Pharmaceutical and medical translation in the 20th Century

The 20th century was a period of profits in the pharmaceutical business. This meant an increase in research and development, in investments and in profits with a real expansion of studies and drugs and medicines available. We are talking about massive sales medicines such as Ibuprofen, Bayern Aspirin, Valium, Paracetamol or the contraceptive pill (as Viagra came much later).

From the big expansion to globalization, the path was a necessity. More investment and sales made a growing number of compounds possible. Demands came from everywhere. And here is where the medical and pharmaceutical translation services really stepped up, playing a huge role. Despite major workloads, these services were not equipped with modern translation systems. Products required translation by native speakers with double checks or more. Anything to assure accuracy.

A global demand of increasing number of pharmaceuticals made pharmaceutical translations the pivotal tool not only to access but to be successful in different markets. No wonder it is such a specialized area today. Another important consequence of growth was that the main pharmaceutical industry, formerly settled in Germany, leader since 1870’, was surpassed in many cases by other countries, especially the US, where proper global economy started in the pharmaceutical business, being starred by companies such as Sandoz, CIBA or Wyeth.

The earliest pharmacies and apothecaries

Although in a way different than the one they are now, pharmacies and apothecaries go really back in history to meet local or cultural remedies to illness or simply to enhance wellness. And curiously here the early “pharmaceutical business” meets with a growing tendency nowadays, wellness, anti-stress and dietary cures … a growing field for medicine translation.