Industrialized economies have historically maintained the hope that the advances in science, technology and innovation would have offered to the humanity a wide range of options to improve its well-being and attain a sustained economic growth. The transition towards a high technological frontier arising from the rapid advances of science, technology and innovation have opened a debate on the relations between innovation-induced industrial activities, related possible social and environmental threats and the role of policies to keep up with industry developments. To investigate those relations, we collect a unique dataset that includes patent applications in chemical and pharmaceutical technologies and analyse their disclosed groups of compounds by means of computational chemistry techniques to predict their potential noxious effects on human health, environment and ecosystems. We further examine historical and emergent patterns of innovation and diffusion behind those technologies. Our paper contains new methods for measuring the toxicity of patents in the context of chemical and pharmaceutical inventions, as well as sight on the evaluation of regulatory initiatives aimed at sustainable development.