Explaining the Prices of Medical Translation Services: Market Rates and Factors Influencing Pricing!

2. Factors Determining Medical Translation Fees and Market Rates

2-1. Factors Determining Medical Translation Fees

The factors that determine the cost of medical translation are as follows.

2-1-1. Translation Volume and Character Count

The most fundamental aspect of pricing is the word count of the document to be translated (in the case of English) or the character count (in the case of Japanese).
In this case, the unit price varies depending on the specialization and difficulty of the document to be translated, as well as the quality level required by the customer.

2-1-2. Time Required for Translation (Man-Hours, Process, Delivery Time)

The fees may be determined based on the required man-hours (estimated man-hours) rather than the word count or character count.
By increasing the number of proofreading rounds or adding processes such as back translation (a method of translation checking where the translated Japanese is re-translated into English and compared with the original English), higher quality can be ensured, but the fees will increase.
Conversely, if you want to keep costs down, it is possible to reduce costs by omitting translation reviews or opting for a simplified review, or by choosing light editing instead of full editing for post-editing of machine translation.

In that case, it is important to understand what kind of quality compromises may arise due to adjustments.
Additionally, when reporting adverse event information about pharmaceuticals to authorities, there may be a need for translation on short notice, and in such cases, there may be a "rush fee" set.

2-1-3. Types and Number of Languages to be Translated

When a Japanese company releases a product simultaneously worldwide, it is necessary to translate into multiple languages.
Of course, the translation costs increase with the number of languages, and there are also costs for proofreading, but additionally, costs may rise for languages with a limited number of translators.

2-2. Market Rates for Medical Translation Services and Cases Where Additional Fees May Apply

2-2-1. Market Rates for Medical Translation Services

Regarding the pricing of medical translation services, the industry organization JTF (Japan Translation Federation) provides guidelines for translation order prices (Guidelines for Translation Fees (Client Company Translation Order Prices)).
According to the above site, for "Medicine, Healthcare, and Pharmacy," the prices are set at 35 yen for English to Japanese translation (excluding tax) and 30 yen for Japanese to English translation (excluding tax), which are higher than other fields such as "Computer Manuals" and "General Science and Industrial Technology."
The actual fees are influenced not only by basic factors such as the expertise, difficulty, volume of translation, and deadline of the document, but also by the data format of the original and translated texts and the type and extent of necessary data processing.

2-2-2. Cases to be aware of where additional charges may apply

After the translation begins, additional work may arise, or the working hours may significantly exceed the initial plan.
Possible reasons for additional work or increased working hours include the following situations.

●When the original text is not in text data format and the characters are unclear, making OCR reading significantly difficult
●When modifications to the original text occur after the translation request

In such cases, the translation fees may increase compared to the initial estimate.

3. Points to Consider When Choosing Cost-Effective Medical Translation Services

Next, we will introduce points to consider in order to obtain cost-effective medical translation services.
Choosing a translation company that provides cost-effective medical translation services can lead to high satisfaction, while simply opting for a translation company with low rates may result in regret.
The following factors need to be carefully considered.

3-1. A company with high expertise and quality

It is better to choose a company with highly specialized translators, even if it means incurring appropriate costs.

3-2. A company that can provide efficient translation using technology

If you work with a translation company that has a proven track record in translation support tools utilizing existing translation memories and machine translation, you can expect not only cost reduction but also shorter delivery times.

3-3. A company that can provide solutions other than translation

After the translation is complete, if it is a company that can handle content production such as multilingual translation, DTP, and online training as a package, you can expect not only comprehensive cost reduction but also shorter delivery times.

3-4. A company with strong information security

While it cannot be said that companies with low prices necessarily have poor information security, it is important to choose a company with a solid information security system, even if it costs more.
Companies that clearly state their information management policies on their websites and have many transactions with large corporations can be considered reliable.

3-5. Companies that can consult on cost performance

Customers have various situations regarding the required quality level and budget.
Additionally, depending on the project, there are things that are absolutely necessary even if they incur costs, and there are also options to reduce fees.
It is essential to choose a company that can discuss cost performance and respond to customer requests, such as wanting to keep costs low if it is for internal use only.

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Five Challenges and Solutions in Medical Translation

Introducing common challenges faced by many companies in medical translation and specific solutions.
Additionally, we present multiple success stories of cost and delivery time reduction.

4. Introduction to Human Science's Medical Translation Services

At Human Science, we offer a variety of pharmaceutical translation services.
We address your concerns about translation costs through translations by highly specialized translators, the use of translation support (CAT) tools such as Trados and Phrase TMS (formerly Memsource), and our efforts to improve translation efficiency and quality.
If you have any questions or are interested, please feel free to contact us.

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Medical Translation Services
Features: Reliable Quality Control System and Outstanding Cost Performance
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