COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INTANGIBLE EXPENSES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF QUOTED PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES IN NIGERIA AND GHANA

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted to ascertain the relationship between Intangible expenses and firm performance of quoted pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria and Ghana. The objective of this study was to ascertain the relationship between licensing expenditure, patent right expenditure, and research and development expenditure in pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria and Ghana.  This Research used the data of 3 quoted pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria and 3 pharmaceutical companies in Ghana ranging from 2018 to 20202, to conduct the research. The OLS regression analytical tool was used to analyze the data. The findings of this study states that, licensing expenditure has a positive and significant relationship with firm performance in quoted pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria while licensing expenditure has a negative and insignificant relationship with firm performance in quoted pharmaceutical companies in  Ghana, patent right expenditure has a positive and significant relationship with firm performance in quoted pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria and  Ghana, and research and development expenditure has a positive and significant relationship with  firm performance  in quoted  pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria while research and development expenditure has a positive and insignificant relationship with firm performance in quoted pharmaceutical companies in Ghana. The study recommends that quoted pharmaceutical companies should expend more funds and attention on licenses expenditure in order to have direct impact on the firm performance of quoted pharmaceutical companies.  Following the patient right findings, top management of quoted pharmaceutical companies should expend more funds on patient right department of the quoted pharmaceutical companies in order to increase firm performance, because that could be a deciding factor. The top management of these quoted pharmaceutical companies should expend more funds on research and development, which can lead to long term firm performance.