You don't hear Elon Musk and Eli Lilly and company (LLY -1.37%) mentioned in the same sentence very often. However, the two are certainly intertwined now.

Musk has been in the news quite a bit lately after his acquisition of Twitter. One of his major changes introduced on the social media app was to implement a subscription service for users to pay for verification badges. 

That plan backfired in a huge way, though. Fake accounts obtained verification badges that made them appear to be well-known people and corporations.

Among the victims was none other than Eli Lilly. Shares of the big pharma stock fell more than 4% on Friday following a tweet from a fake account. But is Eli Lilly stock a buy after last week's Twitter prank?

A tweet heard 'round the world

A Twitter account calling itself "Eli Lilly and Company" tweeted on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022, "We are excited to announce insulin is free now." The tweet quickly went viral.

Lilly markets several insulin products. Insulin analog Humalog generated $447 million in the third quarter of 2022. Regular insulin product Humulin raked in more than $238 million. Insulin glargene injection Basaglar made $193 million. Together, the three products made up nearly 13% of Lilly's total revenue in Q3.

If true, Lilly offering any of its insulin products for free would have been huge news. Of course, the tweet wasn't true. It was taken down within a few hours. Twitter subsequently suspended its pay-for-verification subscription service.

Lilly (the real company, in this case) tweeted on Friday, "We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our official Twitter account is @LillyPad." While the drugmaker's shares had fallen more than 4% as a result of the prank, the stock regained some of the loss by Monday morning trading.

Things to like

To be sure, this incident was embarrassing for Lilly. The company has drawn significant criticism for its pricing of insulin products. However, Lilly does make its insulin products available to patients for $35 per month whether they have insurance or not -- a level that President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act mandated for Medicare beneficiaries but not for all patients.

Regardless of one's opinion about Lilly's insulin pricing approach, there are several things for investors to like about the stock. For one thing, Lilly is absolutely trouncing the overall market so far this year even with the small pullback following last week's Twitter prank.

Wall Street views Lilly favorably. Of the 22 analysts surveyed by Refinitiv, four think the stock is a "strong buy" with nine analysts rating it as a "buy." Only one analyst has a negative rating for Lilly. 

This general optimism is driven in part by Lilly's current product lineup. The company had seven major products with double-digit percentage sales growth in Q3. Breast cancer drug Verzenio and diabetes drug Jardiance delivered especially strong growth.

Lilly's pipeline is even more exciting, though. CEO Dave Ricks noted in the Q3 conference call that the company could potentially launch four new drugs by the end of 2023. He added, "We are experiencing an unprecedented rate of new product launches for Lilly and undoubtedly one of the most impressive rates in our industry."

You'll want to especially watch two of Lilly's candidates. The Wall Street consensus is that tirzepatide, which is already marketed as Mounjaro in treating diabetes and could win another approval for treating obesity, should achieve peak annual sales of around $15 billion. Lilly also has high hopes for Alzheimer's disease drug donanemab.

A verified winner

Lofty growth expectations are already baked into Lilly's share price to some extent. The pharma stock still trades at 38 times expected earnings after the huge gain so far this year. 

There are other negatives for Lilly as well. Sales for its insulin products are sinking. The company doesn't expect any more orders from the U.S. government for COVID-19 antibody therapy bebtelovimab. COVID-related sales for Olumiant are also falling. 

Still, though, Lilly could deliver strong growth for years to come with regulatory approvals for tirzepatide and donanemab. I think the stock is a good pick to buy with the recent pullback. Forget last week's Twitter tumult. Lilly is a verified winner.