I've also heard the term "development hell" quite a lot around movie production. Maaaayyyybbe doesn't count since usually they're mostly going "Let's make that" and get stuck from there compared to video games usually releasing plenty of preliminary footage before going vaporware.
Development hell is also frequent in the Game industry. Examples are Duke Nukem Forever and Half-Life 2+1 (never say 3).
As in Medicine industry, yes they are very strict specially in field studies. I haven't encountered a project delay so far in my field (Clinical Nutrition). You basically can't ignore delays since in most cases, you have to wrap up your project before test subjects (people) get tired and leave (there are some exceptions in Cohort studies though).
But all in all, unexpected road bumps are gonna slow your road map down.