The Real Cost of Cheap Translation: Lessons from EBME Expo 2026
What EBME Expo 2026 Taught Me About Medtech’s Translation Blind Spot
I spent Wednesday at EBME Expo, meeting with existing clients and speaking to as many exhibitors as I could across the medical technology sector. Beyond the devices and diagnostic kit on show, one thing became clear fairly quickly: a lot of medical companies are managing translation in a way that’s more fragmented, and more exposed, than they realise.
Here’s what stood out.
1. Expansion is accelerating, and compliance is coming with it
Several exhibitors I spoke to are already established across Europe and are now actively pushing into the Middle East and the US. New products are landing in new markets all the time, and each one brings its own translation and labelling requirements.
For companies selling in the EU, that almost always means navigating EU MDR compliance on top of whatever’s required locally — multilingual documentation, instructions for use, packaging, and regulatory submissions all need to be accurate, consistent, and audit-ready.
It’s a lot to manage, and for many teams it’s being handled reactively rather than as part of a joined-up expansion strategy.
2. “Our distributors in-country sort the translations, we don’t have to worry about it”
This came up more than once, and it’s a fair statement on the surface. Distributors translating product information as part of the relationship feels like a cost and time saving. But free doesn’t mean fit for purpose, or even good! Distributor translations are not carried out by people who are professional translators, and the content is rarely reviewed for consistency with your other markets, and almost never typeset back into compliant artwork.
Distributors also have a way of changing the source text (or not using it at all!) and writing what they feel is appropriate for the market, which the client then has no control over.
The “saving” shows up immediately; the cost — in queries, corrections, or compliance risk — shows up later, usually when it’s harder to fix.
3. Proving ROI internally is its own challenge
Even exhibitors who agreed specialist translation was the right call told me the harder job is making that case internally. Getting budget signed off for translation services often means convincing stakeholders across regulatory, marketing, and finance — none of whom necessarily see translation as core spend, and all of whom need a clear answer to “what do we get for this that we’re not already getting?”
One exhibitor told me about a previous experience that had put them off the idea altogether: they’d invested in an LSP, expecting a smoother process, and instead got back poor-quality translations with messy, uncoordinated customer service and no real collaboration. That single bad experience had coloured how the whole business viewed translation providers since — which is a genuine shame, because it’s exactly the kind of experience that good process and communication should prevent.
That story stuck with me. It’s a reminder that the ROI conversation isn’t just about cost— it’s about whether a provider can demonstrate, concretely, that the experience will be better.
4. Typesetting is an underestimated drain on internal teams
This was the one that surprised me the most. Several exhibitors mentioned that typesetting translated content — getting it back into artwork, packaging files, or formatted documents — is eating up time for staff who have far more valuable things to be doing. It’s treated as a necessary evil rather than something that could simply be handled for them.
When I explained that Andiamo! handles translation and typesetting as one smooth, collaborative process — so nothing comes back to their team as a half-finished job needing hours of formatting work — I got a genuinely positive reaction. A good few exhibitors asked me to follow up after the show specifically on this point.
5. Different departments, different suppliers, no consistency
Perhaps the most telling insight: many of the companies I spoke to have marketing, regulatory, and other departments each using different translation suppliers, with little to no coordination between them. That’s a recipe for inconsistent technical terminology, duplicated cost, and compliance risk — particularly when regulatory and marketing content for the same product needs to align.
It also makes the ROI case harder to build, since nobody in the business has a full picture of what’s being spent or where it’s going wrong.
What this means for medical companies expanding internationally
If any of this sounds familiar: a difficult internal case for proper investment, typesetting headaches, or multiple suppliers across departments — it’s worth taking stock of how translation is actually being handled across your organisation, not just within one department.
It was great to connect with familiar faces among the exhibitors, as well as meeting plenty of new contacts.
If you were at EBME Expo and we didn’t get the chance to speak, or if this resonates regardless, I’d be glad to talk through how a single, one-stop, translation and typesetting partner could simplify your global rollout and make the ROI case easier to build.
Contact our friendly team today.
