What to Expect From Eli Lilly Earnings

This stock checks in high on the global pharmaceutical lists at many top Wall Street firms. Eli Lilly is still somewhat surprisingly out of consensus with portfolio managers at mutual fund and hedge funds. It also had more Neutral ratings than Buy ratings on Wall Street, going into October.

The company reported second-quarter earnings that were above consensus estimates, but revenues declined, reflecting generic competition for Cymbalta and Evista in the United States, as well as some negative currency movement. However, revenues surpassed consensus expectations.

Its new cancer drug Cyramza won FDA approval for label expansion recently. It treats patients suffering from metastatic colorectal cancer. This was the fourth Cyramza approval in a one year period; it already has approval to treat advanced or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma and metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. Cyramza has so far generated sales of $67.5 million.

However, Eli Lilly did stumble on a recent drug trial. The pharma giant said that it and the ACCELERATE study’s academic leadership have accepted the recommendation of the independent data monitoring committee to terminate its Phase 3 trial of the investigational medicine evacetrapib. The reason was insufficient efficacy. It will now discontinue development of evacetrapib for the treatment of high-risk atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The drug giant also said that it will now conclude other studies in the program.

Before Eli Lilly reports earnings, a few analysts have already weighed in on the company:

• Sanford Bernstein lowered its price target to $92 from $103.
• Piper Jaffray reiterated a Buy rating and lowered its price target to $118 from $120.
• Leerink reiterated an Outperform rating and lowered its price target to $90 from $93.
• Merrill Lynch reiterated an Outperform rating and lowered its price target to $104 from $108.

So far in 2015, Eli Lilly has outperformed the market and the stock is up 15%. Over the course of the past 52 weeks, the stock is up nearly 27%.

Shares of Eli Lilly were trading down 2.2% at $76.10 Wednesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $95.79 and a 52-week trading range of $63.41 to $92.85.

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