What happened in one judge’s courtroom in Texas could have drastic effects for the United States’ entire drug approval process, experts warn. Often, the US market is the first to get access to new drugs, but that could change if lawsuits undermine the regulatory integrity of the FDA process, said Susan Lee, a Life Sciences partner, who works with companies to get drugs approved by the FDA. “If there do tend to be more lawsuits like this, I wonder if there might be a little bit of a tendency to not always look at the US as the first market,” Lee said to CNN. “Some manufacturers may say ‘we’d rather go to Europe, where we’re not going to be sued on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis.’ “ Lee also wonders whether manufacturers will abandon efforts to develop drugs that could be considered unappealing to some, such as those that help women’s health or work to prevent HIV.