The pharma industry

Just like most of the pharma industry, Norak Pharma does not have time to approach the road ahead in a slow step-by-step approach. This is because the digital explosion in Pharma is already upon us. Patient focused medicines and market changes with product competition are a constant demand. The route ahead for Norak translations to the pharma industry is split into two roads, Technical and Human.

The technical road ahead will be looked at in much more detail through following updates, but suffice to say that the higher technical demands of increased globalisation, for our translation services, will lie in the areas of transcreation, video translation, CAT (computer assisted translation) tools, machine translations with post editing and proofreading by people and also cloud collaboration. These are just a few technical discussion points and all are important.

As for the human road ahead, here we will start to look at where we see the need for innovative solutions, meeting the demands of a complex global supply chain.

The starting point is to ascertain our common objectives. At a human level, one common objective for pharma and its support services is the constant strive for high quality and excellence. This aim is integral to the guidelines of both GMP and GLP and reinforced in the guidance from competent health authorities. The philosophy of quality and excellence are, therefore, assumed goals that we all have as a standard service level. The interesting features of our translation services adapt to how we work with you, and how we use our core skills of excellence to ensure you achieve your objectives.

Conveying concepts to a different culture though the written word is going to be a key focus for Norak Pharma over the coming years. How we see the future is in two parallel service umbrellas. One being functional, where specific pharma departments need precise and accurate translations for localisation or legal purposes, the second service line being more conceptual. This is where we see the pharma companies needing a close and adaptive translation to help with communications to a globalised supply chain. Even though we have GMP and GLP and other guidelines, when you globalise the message of standards and processes becomes confused. Conceptual translations will be a large part of our futures in solving challenges from the ground up.

What are the effects pharma companies feel when standards or expectations are not reached? What is the cost in time and other valuable resources through increased oversight?

  • How much does it cost when supply, delivery and installation agreements of vital machinery escalates into arguments due to misunderstandings?
  • How much does it cost when we are out of stock of vital medicines due to misunderstandings?
  • How much does it cost when essential service providers are not harmonised with quality goals or even interfaced processes due to misunderstandings?

The basic effect is the enforced need for increased oversight. The question raised was: What in reality does “increased oversight” mean? Does it mean more meetings with the same CDMO senior teams, or does it mean extra training directly at the roots? Either way language translation is a core solution.

Through our own changes, Norak is finding solutions that can support both the Quality and Supply Chain teams. Even simple solutions like translating Audit Reports and CAPAs into local languages so that CDMOs are able to get the right message down to the grassroots level. How about translating FAQs and instruction manuals for workers? Up-front low-cost solutions that help reduce losses of a much higher level.

Vendor Management or Partner management is just one area where Norak is looking to add small innovative solutions that will bring real gains in reducing the waste of high value resources.