Regulatory Affairs (RA), also called Government Affairs, is a profession within regulated industries, such as pharmaceuticals, medical devices, energy, and banking. Regulatory Affairs also has a very specific meaning within the healthcare industries (pharmaceuticals, medical devices, Biologics and functional foods). Most companies, whether they are major multinational pharmaceutical corporations or small, innovative biotechnology companies, have specialist departments of Regulatory Affairs professionals. The success of regulatory strategy is less dependent on the regulations than on how they are interpreted, applied, and communicated within companies and to outside constituents. Regulatory Affairs plays a crucial role in the pharmaceutical industry and is involved in all stages of drug development and also after drug approval and marketing. The drug development process is a lengthy, complex and extremely costly albeit necessary process. Pharmaceutical companies use all the data accumulated during discovery and development stages in order to register the drug and thus market the drug.