Life Sciences Translation and Interpreting

Life sciences

Life sciences translation for pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies

Life sciences translation is read by regulators, ethics committees, clinicians and patients, and each of them reads it differently. A regulator expects the approved terminology. A trial participant needs plain words they can act on. Our linguists have proven experience in the life sciences industry and in-depth knowledge of country-specific regulations, global markets and the entire commercial supply chain, from the laboratory to the patient.

We offer translation, interpreting and localization for every stage of that chain, helping life sciences companies run global clinical trials, get through regulatory hurdles and succeed in the global marketplace. Our linguists follow strict guidelines, maintain confidentiality and work to an error-free standard in both translation and interpreting.

Clinical trial translation

Trials run across countries, and their documents have to go with them. We translate protocols and synopses, participant information sheets and informed consent forms, patient diaries and questionnaires, investigator brochures, case report forms and adverse event reports.

Participant-facing documents are read by people with no medical background, sometimes at a stressful time, so the translation has to read at the same plain level as the approved English. A consent form that is technically accurate but hard to follow is not doing its job.

Many sponsors and ethics committees ask for back translation of participant-facing material. A second translator, who has not seen the English, translates the translation back, and the two English versions are compared. Questionnaires that measure patient-reported outcomes often need full linguistic validation, which adds reconciliation and interviews with patients. Both add time, so if your protocol calls for either, tell us at the start.

Regulatory submissions and product information

For centrally authorised medicines in the EU, the product information (the summary of product characteristics, labelling and package leaflet) is needed in every official EU language, plus Icelandic and Norwegian, following the EMA's QRD templates. Medical devices sold in the EU need labels and instructions for use in the language or languages each member state requires under the Medical Device Regulation. In the UK, the MHRA requires labels and leaflets in English, so source documents from overseas often need translating the other way.

Regulatory translation has to use the terms the regulator expects: the standard wording in the QRD templates, MedDRA for adverse events, and the EDQM Standard Terms for dosage forms and routes of administration. A translator who invents their own equivalents creates questions at review.

Pharmacovigilance

Adverse event reports arrive in whatever language the patient or doctor wrote them in, and the reporting clock is already running: serious cases generally have to be reported within 15 days, and some within 7. Literature monitoring turns up articles in languages your safety team may not read. Fast, accurate translation of safety information is part of meeting those deadlines, so talk to us about it before the first urgent case arrives, not during it.

Research, training and communications

Documents we often translate for the life sciences industry include research papers, press conference material, training material, clinical trial documents, regulatory submissions and medical documents. Material aimed at healthcare professionals is covered by each country's promotional rules, which in the UK means the ABPI Code of Practice, so plan for translated material to go through local approval before it is used.

Our interpreters work at investigator meetings, advisory boards, site visits, audits and inspections, and press conferences, and with patients during study visits. For meetings with a large international audience, see conference interpreting.

Confidentiality

Our key focus is client confidentiality, quality and accuracy. Unpublished results, formulations and trial data are commercially sensitive, and often price-sensitive as well. If you need a non-disclosure agreement in place before you send anything, include it with your quote request.

Languages for life sciences

Our linguists work in more than 350 languages. For multinational studies that usually means the major European languages, such as German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Dutch and Hungarian, alongside Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Russian, and the less widely spoken languages of participants at individual sites. For patient-facing healthcare work in the UK, see our healthcare sector page.