Research and Development Expenses
Research and development expenses are charged to operations as incurred. Research and development expenses include, among other things, internal and external costs associated with preclinical development, pre-commercialization manufacturing expenses, and clinical trials. The Company accrues for costs incurred as the services are being provided by monitoring the status of the trial or services provided and the invoices received from its external service providers. In the case of clinical trials, a portion of the estimated cost normally relates to the projected cost to treat a patient in the trials, and this cost is recognized based on the number of patients enrolled in the trial. As actual costs become known, the Company adjusts its accruals accordingly.
Research and development expense is presented net of reimbursements from reimbursable tax and expenditure credits from the U.K. government. The majority of the Company’s pipeline research, clinical trials management and the Epidiolex and Sativex chemistry and manufacturing controls development activities, which are generally carried out by a subsidiary in the U.K., are eligible for inclusion under the U.K tax and expenditure rebate schemes. For the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, three months ended December 31, 2018 and year ended September 30, 2018, the Company recorded $8.1 million, $4.0 million, $0.8 million, and $4.3 million, respectively, of U.K. tax and expenditure rebates as a component of research and development expense.
Concentration Risk
Financial instruments, which potentially subject the Company to concentrations of credit risk, principally consist of cash, cash equivalents, investment securities, and accounts receivable. The Company’s cash and cash equivalents balances are primarily in depository accounts at major financial institutions in accordance with the Company’s investment policy. The Company’s investment policy defines allowable investments and establishes guidelines relating to credit quality, diversification, and maturities of its investments to preserve principal and maintain liquidity. Further, the Company specifies credit quality standards for its customers that are designed to limit the Company’s credit exposure to any single party.
For the year ended December 31, 2020 the Company’s five largest customers represented approximately 79% of the Company’s product net sales and 75% of the Company’s accounts receivable balance as of December 31, 2020. For the year ended December 31, 2019, the Company’s five largest customers represented approximately 85% of the Company’s product net sales and 86% of the Company’s accounts receivable balance as of December 31, 2019. For the three months ended December 31, 2018, the Company’s five largest customers represented approximately 71% of the Company’s product net sales and 75% of the Company’s accounts receivable balance as of December 31, 2018. For the year ended September 30, 2018, product net sales consisted entirely of Sativex sales outside of the United States pursuant to license agreements with a small number of commercial partners.
Share-based Compensation
The Company recognizes share-based compensation expense for grants of stock options under the Company’s Long-Term Incentive Plans to employees and non-employee members of the Company’s board of directors based on the grant-date fair value of those awards. The grant-date fair value of an award is generally recognized as compensation expense over the award’s requisite service period. Expense related to awards with graded vesting is generally recognized over the vesting period using the accelerated attribution method.
The Company uses the Black-Scholes model to compute the estimated fair value of market-priced stock option awards. Using this model, fair value is calculated based on assumptions with respect to (i) expected volatility of the Company’s ADS price, (ii) the periods of time over which employees and members of the board of directors are expected to hold their options prior to exercise (expected lives), (iii) expected dividend yield on the ordinary shares, and (iv) risk-free interest rates. Share-based compensation expense also includes an estimate, which is made at the time of grant, of the number of awards that are expected to be forfeited. This estimate is revised, if necessary, in subsequent periods if actual forfeitures differ from those estimates.
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