Republicans and Democrats continue to disagree about how to fix the struggling economy, but most members of both parties agree on at least one thing: Technology will continue to drive economic growth in the future. The life sciences sector, in particular, will be as crucial to tomorrow’s advances as the physical sciences were in developing yesterday’s — the jet engine, the semiconductor.

This is the good news for American patients and companies, since the United States is the long-standing global leader in fields like biotechnology and drug development. The bad news is that U.S. dominance in the life sciences is now threatened by an outdated regulatory system at the Food and Drug Administration.