Cactus Communications Featured in Smart Manager

Cactus Communications was featured in the Nov-Dec issue of Smart Manager, India's first world-class management magazine. The comprehensive seven-page article, authored by Cactus' CEO Anurag Goel, outlines the origins of Cactus and highlights its uniqueness as an industry unto itself in India. It goes on to elucidate the growth chart of the company, its business profile, its open culture, and finally, how its employees celebrate diversity with one common thread binding them all-love for the English language.

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Cactus Communications and Dove Medical Press enter into an alliance in the United States

Cactus Communications, a reputed scholarly communication partner of several journal publishers, has entered into an alliance with Dove Medical Press, a leading publisher of targeted peer-reviewed open access journals covering the broad spectrum of biomedicine and science, effective April 1, 2009. As per the agreement, Cactus will help Dove extend the outreach of published clinical research and basic science within the healthcare communities.

Shedding light on the nature of the relationship, Kevin Toale, Director – Dove Medical Press, remarks, “This alliance is an ideal way for us to further improve our service to clients and authors in the USA and indeed globally. In particular, and consistent with the rigor of peer review and the need to maintain high standards of quality, the open access publishing model and the support of Cactus will provide the potential to assist more authors to reach a wider audience and readership in a faster publication time frame.”
This move provides mutually beneficial opportunities for both parties. Being open access, Dove is not restricted by space constraints as many traditional publishers are; this makes its collection of peer-reviewed journals an easily accessible repository of key research and reviews in the scientific and medical fields. Through the recently formed alliance, Dove now aims to achieve even wider dissemination of information by efficiently using Cactus’ resources and technologies.

Says Donald Samulack, PhD, VP – Medical Affairs and Strategic Partnerships, Cactus US, about Cactus’ role in the alliance, “A relationship between Cactus and Dove is a win-win for both parties, broadening access on many levels of commercial endeavor, worldwide. Our business models are really very complementary. It only makes sense that we continue to explore novel approaches to providing unique market value through a combined effort, and to leverage our capabilities in the movement toward global expansion.”

About Dove: Dove Medical Press is a private company, founded in 2003 with the objective of combining the highest editorial standards with the best-of-breed new publishing technologies. Currently, it has offices in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, with an active presence in the USA and a network of agents in other key worldwide markets in Europe, the Americas, and Southeast Asia. Dove Medical Press has created a broad range of over 70 open access, high quality, peer reviewed biomedical and scientific titles. These online journals are scholarly and international focusing on medicine, drug treatment, risk management and basic science across a breadth of disease states and technologies. The aim is to support authors and provide very rapid publication in a range of targeted titles to extend reach and readership. Visit http://www.dovepress.com/ for more details.

About Cactus: Cactus Communications is a specialist provider of academic editing, medical communications, media/design, and training services to journals, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and corporations worldwide. With offices in the US, Japan, and India and a professionally trained editorial workforce, Cactus has one of the world’s largest and most recognized editing and writing teams under the flagship arm Editage. Visit http://www.cactusmed.com (USA), http://www.cactus.co.jp (Japan) and http://www.cactusglobal.com (India) for more details.

Cactus Communications Inc. (USA)
Donald Samulack, PhD, VP - Medical Affairs and Strategic Partnerships
E-mail: donald.samulack@cactusmed.com
Phone: +1-901-866-1620

Dove Medical Press Ltd.
Kevin Toale - Director
E-mail: kevin@dovepress.co.uk
Phone: +44-1625-509130

Cactus Japan hosts a party for its clients in Tokyo

Cactus Japan KK, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cactus Communications Pvt. Ltd., hosted a reception for its clients in Tokyo on July 16, 2009.

The evening began with a presentation by CEO Anurag Goel. Titled “The Cactus Story,” it traced the origins of Cactus, shed light on its present status, and introduced Vision 2012—a 3-year roadmap for the future. This was followed by a toast by Atsushi Kanamaru of Waseda International Corporation, one of Cactus’ longtime partner clients. Representatives of JSAP, Kinokuniya, Yokohama City Government, and ISS Institute also shared their Cactus experience. The gathering not only brought clients face to face with Cactus representatives but also served to strengthen mutual ties through the sharing of first-hand experiences.

The reception was also attended by Niyanta Deshpande and Prof. Mark Petersen, Cactus advisors who delivered an insider’s perspective of working with Cactus. In all, the event was attended by 70 guests from various companies, universities, and Gakkais in Japan.

Editage completes work on 50,000 manuscripts

Editage, the flagship division of Cactus Communications Pvt. Ltd., achieved a new high in May as it completed processing 50,000 manuscripts. This achievement comes as a vindication of the sustained efforts at Editage to deliver maximum value to its clients by catering to a broad spectrum of academic and non-academic disciplines.

Consistent delivery of top-quality services that guarantee clients international publishing standards and quick turnaround times has helped Editage achieve this significant landmark. Khuzem Batawala, VP–Marketing, who was visibly elated about the achievement, commented, “We are thankful to all our clients who have trusted us and helped us reach this far. We hope to continually set higher benchmarks.”

City of Yokohama Launches Its Liaison Office in Mumbai

The City of Yokohama government has launched its new office, Yokohama-Mumbai Liaison Office (http://www.cactusglobal.com/yokohama-mumbai/), in Mumbai, India through Cactus Communications Pvt. Ltd., an Indian firm with business operations in India, Japan, and the US. This is the Yokohama government’s fifth liaison office outside Japan, in addition to their existing offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Los Angeles, and Frankfurt.

Yokohama and Mumbai have shared over 40 years of sister-city exchange, and many Indian companies including leading IT enterprises, have advanced into Yokohama in recent years. The launch of the office in Mumbai will serve as a catalyst for promoting further exchange with India, focusing on attracting Indian companies and promoting the overseas business interests of Yokohama-based companies. Cactus was selected through an open proposal that was put forth by inviting partner companies interested in fructifying this goal.

This new office will focus on providing information to enable Indian companies to expand into Yokohama, promote Indian investments into Japan, and invite Indian businesses and tourists to the City of Yokohama. It will also provide business support on the Indian side to Yokohama-based companies interested in expanding to India. There will be increased emphasis on promoting exchange between Yokohama and Mumbai through sister-city ties and fostering collaboration between the local governments and other related institutions.

Talking about his aim for Yokohama-Mumbai Liaison office, Abhishek Goel, Founder and Director–Business Development, Cactus Communications, said, “We have been offering various services to our Japanese clients since 2002. With the support of the City of Yokohama government, we hope to share our expertise and learning with other Indian corporations, and to encourage, prepare, and guide them in successfully expanding their operations into Japan. We also look forward to assisting Japanese delegations who want to know more about Mumbai and India.”

About Cactus: Cactus Communications Pvt. Ltd. is a Mumbai-based company providing services such as proofreading/editing of English documents, transcription, translation, design, and English education and training to Japanese clients. The company, headed by Anurag Goel, is familiar with Japanese business practices and has a large clientele base comprising Japanese companies, universities, and research institutions. Cactus is a member of reputed industry bodies such as NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) and CII (Confederation of Indian Industry).

Contact information:
Abhishek Goel
Representative—Yokohama–Mumbai Liaison Office (http://www.cactusglobal.com/yokohama-mumbai/)
Founder & Director—Business Development, Cactus Communications Pvt. Ltd. (www.cactusglobal.com)
E-mail: yokohama-mumbai@cactusglobal.com
Direct: +91 22 6714 8857
Board: +91 22 6714 8888
Fax: +91 22 6714 8889

Cactus completes over one year as the official editor for TIGG

Cactus Japan KK, the Japan arm of global editing solutions provider Cactus Communications Pvt. Ltd., has been in a collaboration with Trends in Glycoscience and Glycotechnology (TIGG) since March 2008. As part of its responsibilities, Cactus has been offering its editing expertise to TIGG to facilitate the latter’s progress toward attaining a position of international standing in the relatively nascent fields of glycoscience and glycotechnology.

Midori Matsumoto, Associate Editor on the editorial board of TIGG, played a significant role in fructifying this move. Elaborating on how TIGG and Cactus came together, she remarks, “As a client of Editage (Cactus), I had been using their services for the last 3 years and I found them to be consistently reliable. During discussions about the need to have professional editing assistance, our editorial board realized that Cactus could add considerable value to TIGG’s publication in terms of improved readability. What followed then was a natural progression.”

This partnership has proved to be an important step in Cactus’ endeavors to leave a footprint in various emerging academic fields. Glycotechnology is being increasingly viewed as a technology for the future, and Forum Carbohydrates Coming of Age (FCCA), the body that publishes TIGG, is actively contributing toward this growing perception.

Editage edits 10,000 academic papers every year for its Japanese clients

Note: This is an unofficial and tentative translation.

In Japanese academic fields, there are some instances that exemplify the rapid progress of the outsourcing business of Indian companies.

Cactus Communications, located in the north of Mumbai, is one such company. It receives orders for editing English papers from Japanese researchers. There are about 160 employees at Cactus, specializing in medical/pharmaceutical sciences, chemistry, arts, and so on, to address the various requirements from Japan. Abhishek Goel, Vice president, Cactus Communications, said “Japan is ranked second (790,000 papers) in the world after the U.S. (2,900,000) in terms of the number of English papers presented at academic conferences in the past 10 years.”

“However, from the point of view of the number of citations, Japan is ranked 5th after the U.S., U.K., Germany, and France. To fill in this gap, improving the English language level of these papers is the key,” he added. Thus far, Cactus has been associated with Kinokuniya Company (bookstore chain) and leading Japanese universities, and it has been editing more than 10,000 English papers every year.

Personally, I asked them to edit my manuscript on international politics (10 pages, A4) for my presentation. It took only six days (including weekend), and it cost me only around ¥20,000.

The original article appeared on 16 February 2009 in a special supplement of the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. The special supplement called Asahi Globe focused on Indian Knowledge Outsourcing Power.

About the authors:
Yukifumi Takeuchi
Born in 1956, Yukifumi is presently a member of the editorial board of Asahi Shimbun and has worked as a Business News Deskman and as a Correspondent in Bangkok and New Delhi.

Fumihiko Yoshida
Born in 1955, Fumihiko is presently an Editorialist and has worked as a Correspondent in Washington D.C. and as a Bureau Chief at Brussels.

Shinichi Ikeda
Born in 1965, Shinichi is presently an Asahi GLOBE Correspondent and has worked as a Political Reporter and Correspondent at Washington D.C.

Editage creates history: 19 editors pass the BELS exam!

Editage created history after 19 of its editors passed the exams conducted by the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS) in November for the first time ever in India. Ever since BELS was founded in 1991, only a little over 700 editors have earned the BELS certification worldwide.

The fact that 20 of the 21 ELS certified editors in India are associated with Editage is a great achievement in itself, and it validates the considerable investment made by Editage in quality and training. The stringent recruitment processes at Editage (only 2 out of every 1000 candidates are selected as editors on average) are increasingly gaining external recognition.

BELS was founded in 1991 to evaluate the proficiency of manuscript editors in the life sciences and to award credentials similar to those obtainable in other professions. Further information on BELS can be found here.

Cactus featured in CenterWatch Monthly

Cactus was featured in the November 2008 issue of CenterWatch Monthly. The CenterWatch Monthly newsletter provides clinical research professionals with in-depth business news, feature articles on trends, original research and analyses, as well as grant lead information for investigative sites. It assists pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, contract research organizations, site management organizations, academic institutions, research centers, and the investment community in conducting and managing their clinical research activities more effectively.

The piece titled "Medical Writing Takes Off in India" was published as a special article in the November issue (Vol. 15, Issue 11). Authored by Karyn Korieth, the article focuses on medical writing as the latest niche CRO service being offered from India. It also sheds light on the cost benefits offered by the Indian CRO market as endorsed by US industry studies: a 35% to 50% reduction in the cost of clinical trials. Citing the example of Cactus, which has stringent quality control systems, the feature goes on to elucidate why India is an attractive outsourcing destination for medical writing and scientific editing.

This feature corroborates Cactus' rapid rise as a provider of high-quality medical writing services. To read the article, click here.

Cactus makes it to the Top 15 in the NASSCOM Exciting Emerging Companies (EEC) Survey

Cactus added another feather in its cap as it was ranked the 12th "Exciting Emerging Company to Work For" in the NASSCOM Exciting Emerging Companies (EEC) survey, which was conducted in September 2008.

Close on the heels of tasting success at the first ever BELS exam in India, this has come as another external recognition for the dynamic and exciting work environment at Cactus. Anurag Goel, CEO, Cactus Communications, exclaimed, "We are very happy with this recognition since we spend a lot of time and energy trying to ensure all of us enjoy work. We hope to be higher up the list the next time around."

NASSCOM is a global trade body with over 1200 members, of which over 250 are global companies from the US, UK, EU, Japan and China. NASSCOM's member companies are in the business of software development, software services, software products, IT-enabled/BPO services and e-commerce. More information on NASSCOM can be found here.