The phrase "a critical setback" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a significant obstacle or hindrance that negatively impacts progress or success in a situation.
Example: "The project faced a critical setback when the main supplier went out of business, delaying our timeline significantly."
Alternatives: "a major obstacle" or "a significant hindrance."
Yet analysts did not consider the cancellation a critical setback for Merck.
For two banks in particular, denial of the mergers was a critical setback.
In fact, Correlogic, which has advanced its technology much more aggressively than the Eastern Virginia group, suffered a critical setback last winter.
I asked him if he had ever suffered a critical setback, something that had rocked him to his foundation and taught him some sort of lesson in his relatively young life.
In a critical setback for the project, the state Senate on Feb. 4 nominated a strong critic of the incentives, Sen. Michael N. Gianaris (D-Queens), to a state board where he could effectively veto the deal.
Losing Aleppo would be a critical setback for opposition forces.
The failure of the Textile Workers Union of America to organize its jurisdiction has often been considered the CIO's most critical setback in establishing industrial unionism in the United States.
She never courted the disapprobation that attached to her self-portrait – and it's interesting that she only painted herself once more after that critical setback, as if, despite her confidence, she flinched from certain kinds of exposure, and didn't want to be defined as belonging in salons des refusés.
The increased visibility of gays and lesbians has become a permanent feature of American life despite the two critical setbacks of the AIDS epidemic and an anti-gay backlash (see Berman, 1993, for a good survey).
But Mr. Messier suffered two critical setbacks last week, when Vivendi's five North American directors voted to remove him, and a crucial ally, Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, resigned from Vivendi's board.
Since the Helsinki proposal was announced more than three years ago, the Guggenheim Foundation has tenaciously promoted it despite critical setbacks, including the local city board's rejection of the project in a narrow vote in 2012 because of cost concerns, particularly a controversial $30 million licensing fee for the privilege of using the Guggenheim name.
