17. Intangible assets

Development costs are referred to costs for the study, design and prototype development for products which have been or are expected to be commercialized and for which is probable that the expected future economic benefits will flow to the entity. Development expense is recognized in the consolidated income statement as Research and Development expenses.

Industrial patents and intellectual property rights increase in EUR 4,792 thousand due to the acquisition of licenses for IT Systems and the capitalization of costs associated with upgrading the enterprise resource planning system (ERP).

Concessions, licenses, trademarks and similar rights with a total carrying amount of EUR 9,908 thousand (EUR 11,375 thousand in 2021) mainly includes the tradenames related to Balda Group companies.

Intangible fixed assets in process and advances refer to ongoing projects which shall conclude in the subsequent years. Intangible fixed assets and advances increase in EUR 2,667 thousand mainly due to the integration of our business divisions into the cloud-based enterprise resource planning system. The Group performed an analysis on such cloud computing arrangements for identifying whether they provided a resource identifiable as intangible assets and established that the Group has the power to obtain the future economic benefits flowing from the underlying resources and to restrict the access of others to those benefits. In particular, the analysis was aimed at identifying whether (i) the Group has the contractual right to take possession of the software during the hosting period without significant penalty and (ii) it is feasible for the Group to run the software on its own hardware or contract with another party unrelated to the supplier to host the software.

The increase in Costs to obtain a contract is due to the capitalization of a fee paid to a strategic partner under a collaboration agreement that makes Stevanato Group the exclusive manufacturing partner for a drug delivery device, offering a full set of capabilities to its pharmaceutical customers.

No impairment indicators have been identified for intangible assets and therefore no impairment losses have been accounted for. No changes in the useful life of intangible assets have occurred in all periods presented.