Eli Lilly & CompanyLLY

Effient holds better efficacy than Plavix, which generates more than $8 billion in annual worldwide sales. Effient needs to capture only a faction of those sales to become a blockbuster.

A once-weekly formulation of diabetes drug Byetta holds the potential to add several hundred million to Lilly's top line and support the drug's market share against competition.

Outside of Effient, Lilly is focusing its development efforts on several unmet medical indications in neurology and oncology. The strategy should improve the success rate at the Food and Drug Administration, which has become exceedingly risk-sensitive to new drugs in well-treated areas like cardiology.

A long-acting version of Zyprexa could help the company extend the patent life of the company's most important drug.

Lilly's strong near-term earnings growth should increase its strategic options to deal with the major patent losses beginning in 2011. Read more 

The upcoming patent loss on Evista combined with the discontinuation of pipeline drug Arzoxifene may end Lilly's entrenched franchise in women's health.

Lilly's aggressive bid for ImClone may signal management concerns about the company's pipeline.

Sales for Lilly's top drug Zyprexa will probably continue to slow as the drug tends to cause more weight gain than competing medicines. Also, a major competitor, Risperdal, lost patent protection in 2008, giving patients a low-cost alternative to Zyprexa.

Lilly has been steadily losing share in the insulin market because of Novo Nordisk's NVO more effective marketing and the success of its long-acting and rapid-acting insulin analogs.

Lilly's oncology drug Gemzar could lose patent protection earlier than our 2013 estimate based on potential generic challenges to the drug's patent protection. Read more