Issues in accounting for R&D investment - a perspective from the Dissertation

Issues in accounting for R&D investment - a perspective from the pharmaceutical industry - Dissertation Example The companies operating in the pharmaceutical industry spend millions of dollars each year in the research and development expenditure so that they are able to devise new methods and medicine that are able to cure and provide sustenance to the human body from deadly diseases. From the financial perspective, the research and development expenditure forms an integral part of the financial statements of any pharmaceutical company. Over the years, a debate has been going between the financial managers and the economists regarding the fact pertaining to the accounting treatment of the research and development expenditure in the financial statements of the pharmaceutical companies. ... This particular, in addition to providing a brief historical background of the R&D accounting treatments, highlights the following main R&D accounting issues and their most prudent accounting treatment in the financial statements of a pharmaceutical company: Goodwill accounting during merger and acquisition transaction between multinational Exchange of intangible assets with continuing involvement Upfront payments to conduct research with access to the research Payments made to conduct research Upfront payments received to conduct development: Interim recognition Upfront payments received to conduct development: Completion Donation payment for research Loans received to fund research and development purposes Segmental reporting of internal research and development Treatment of development supplies Advertising and promotional expenditure Accounting for the cost of free samples Line extension development costs The paper also presents the linkage between the research and development exp enditure and financial viability. For this purpose the last three financial years of AsteraZeneca is used. Introduction The top of the worldwide pharmaceutical market is the US and it is expected to hit almost $345 billion in 2014. The second largest market is the Japanese market and then the European market including Germany France, and Chinese market (Market line industry guide, 2012). However, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers (IFPW) shows that growth rates in developed and developing markets based on their capability to recover from the economic crisis is significantly inconsistent. According to the research of Urch Publishing (2012), the global pharmaceutical industry in 2014 is expected to be worth over $1 trillion with a 5% compound annual growth