The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the introduction of new therapeutic agents into the marketplace. Consequently, it plays a critical role in improving health care in the United States. While it is those in the academic and government research communities who engage in the long process of initial discovery and clinical testing of new therapeutic agents, it is the FDA' s role and responsibility to facilitate the transfer of new discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace. Only after the transfer can important new therapies help patients. Which one of the following statements can be inferred from the passage? ['Before new therapeutic agents reach the marketplace they do not help patients.', 'The FDA should work more closely with researchers to ensure that the quality of therapeutic agents is maintained.', 'If a new medical discovery has been transferred from the laboratory to the marketplace, it will help patients.', 'The research community is responsible for the excessively long testing period for new drugs, not the FDA.']