Biomedical
A number of our clients—pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of electrosurgical instruments in particular—have been expanding into the European market. But before they could offer their products for sale, they had to comply with the EU requirements that all documentation be available in the language of each country where the products were to be sold. One client planned major market penetration: France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Greece, and Turkey.
Our first challenge was to assemble and co–ordinate up to 16 different teams of translators and editors with the expertise necessary to effectively handle the client's needs. But translation was just the beginning. The in–house publication team still had to incorporate all those translations into the operator manuals, labels, IFUs, package inserts, customer notifications, and other documentation. And the results had to be proofed and reproofed to make sure they were perfect, that not a word was missing or diacritical mark omitted. A complex and challenging project, and one where we had the satisfaction of knowing that our project management skills, translation teams, and publishing capabilities were first rate.
Penetration into overseas markets is not the only area where JLS has been able to assist clients. Prior to introducing its products into the U.S., a major Japanese drug manufacturer first had to make the results of extensive clinical trials available to regulators in America. This meant the translation of more than 3,000 pages of test results with over 500,000 words, along with journal articles, presentation material, reports, and business plans. The involvement grew to include interpreting services for meetings, conferences, and physician interviews. The client's products cleared all regulatory and marketing hurdles. As they told us later, "We couldn't have done it without you."