Generally speaking, research in industry is investigate and completed “faster” usually because they have the resources in terms of money and experienced people. It also depends what type of research that the company is conducting. In terms of medical device manufacturing, people in Product Development and R&D ideally want to get it done quick but it takes time for various reasons. Research can’t be rushed. Speaking from experience, we tried to change the material of a part for a product. People in marketing wanted the material tested and changed in 2 months. It took 8 months. So the time wasn’t enough, but I believe you can’t rush these things because it leads to a high risk of being non compliant.

If you want to say academia is slower I would speculate it is because a lot of it is driven by trying to get grants to fund whatever research you are doing. If you aren’t bringing in grant money and just relying on school resources, the research will tend to sometimes be stagnant and slow. In addition, inexperienced undergraduates or graduates are sometimes running the labs.