The good news for Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) investors is that the generic competition for megablockbuster Zyprexa in October won't push the company's 2011 revenue into the red. It's guiding for "flat to slightly increasing" revenue compared to last year.
Unfortunately, the bottom line doesn't look so promising -- if you can call flat sales promising. Eli Lilly is forecasting for adjusted EPS of $4.15 to $4.30, down from 2010's adjusted earnings of $4.74 per share -- a 9% to 12% decline.
Most of that decline is attributable to health-care reform and the company's recent diabetes drug deal with Boehringer Ingelheim. Health-care reform will cost the company $150 million to $200 million to pay the mandatory pharmaceutical manufacturers fee. The Boehringer deal seems like a good move to gain access to late-stage drugs, but it doesn't come cheap; Lilly has to pony up about $390 million initially.
Eli Lilly is trading at 8.3 times the midpoint of next year's earnings estimate and has an insane 5.6% dividend. On the surface, that looks crazy-cheap. Peers Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and Merck (NYSE: MRK) haven't reported their 2010 numbers or 2011 guidance yet, but I doubt you'll see them that cheap.
But keep in mind that 2011 could be just the start of a long slide for Lilly. 2012 will see difficult year-over-year comparison since Zyprexa will see generic competition for the entire year. Then 2013 will see the loss of patent protection for Cymbalta and Humalog, which currently make up a quarter of Lilly's sales.
If Lilly had a decent pipeline, investors would have more confidence in the turnaround prospects. But the chance for a blockbuster to save Lilly seems to have died with blood thinner Effient, which was supposed to take a decent chunk of the blood thinner market from Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and sanofi-aventis' (NYSE: SNY) Plavix, but only managed $47 million in the fourth quarter.
Even with the fat dividend, I can't get excited about playing the get-paid-to-wait-for-growth game with Lilly.
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