Innovation constraints

A too restrictive definition of the identified use of a substance in registration may become a constraint on innovation with regard to the development of new applications or new preparations. 

The unique properties of highly fluorinated materials are thus expected to continue inspire chemists, offer new research tools for the life sciences, and contribute to the emergence of new diagnostic and therapeutic innovations. Pharmaceutical development involves increasing complexity and heavy regulatory, financial, and other constraints, and time. Managing such complexity... 

Another regulatory constraint to innovation, but one which is indirect, may occur as a result of the cost of environmental control. To the extent that the costs of environmental control divert resources away from other corporate activities, like R D, and to the extent that innovation is directly related to the level of these resources, regulation is likely to penalize innovative activity. 

A third type of innovation is concerned with attempts to weaken the capacity constraints at both upper and lower limits. At the upper limit, weakening a constraint will reduce unit costs on the assumption that the production relationship holds at greater sizes with approximately the same coefficients that characterized smaller outputs. Production beyond existing upper limits, as noted above, may be associated with difficult engineering problems. Expansion of output by moving along a process curve may not be possible because of additional stresses put on equipment. In addition, attempts to reduce the minimum scale at which a process may be operated may also be worthwhile because of local conditions which both justify a smaller output than may be produced by a given process and make a process attractive... 

Drews, J. Ryser, S. 1997. Pharmaceutical innovation between scientific opportunities and economic constraints. Drug Discovery Today, 2, 365-372. 

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