Many have argued that the regulatory incentives are skewed with respect to pharmaceuticals. 1) Company A's drug is approved, but causes 10,000 people per year

Many have argued that the regulatory incentives are skewed with respect to pharmaceuticals. 1) Company A's drug is approved, but causes 10,000 people per year to suffer sudden death. 2) Company B's drug is not approved, even though it would have saved 10,000 lives per year. The problem here is that scenario #1 makes the regulatory agency look bad, while #2 generally does not. Those patients (and even their doctors) usually won't know that there was a treatment available. This creates an incentive for non-approval.