Lilly erects pill-fuelled earnings rise

Tag : lilly

Eli Lilly & Co, the world's biggest maker of psychiatric drugs,said yesterday second-quarter earnings rose 44 percent on surgingsales of the antidepressant Cymbalta and the impotence pill Cialis.

Net income increased to US$958.8 million, or 88 cents a share, fromUS$663.6 million, or 61 cents, a year earlier, when earnings wereweighed down by the purchase of three companies, Lilly saidyesterday.

Earnings excluding one-time items matched the 99-cents-a-shareestimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales increased11 percent to US$5.15 billion.

Cymbalta and Cialis are vital to Lilly's plan to replace revenue itexpects to lose in 2011, when its top seller, the antipsychoticdrug Zyprexa, gets cheaper generic competition.

Lilly also expects its experimental blood-thinner prasugrel to winapproval from the United States Food and Drug Administration inSeptember.

"There isn't anything terribly exciting taking place at Lilly rightnow," said Barbara Ryan, a Deutsche Bank analyst in Greenwich,Connecticut. "Cymbalta's done very well, but the big headline forLilly is waiting for prasugrel."

Lilly lowered its 2008 forecast to US$3.79 to US$3.94 a share, fromUS$3.90 to US$4.05 a share, on restructuring charges and costs fromlicensing drugs, the company said.