But ceo Sidney Taurel is very upbeat, anyway. He cites sales of new products, cost cutting and lots of cash on his balance sheet.

Here’s an update from our first post: One Wall Street analyst, Prudental Equity’s Tim Anderson, calls it a ‘good quarter to end the year,’ since most targets were met.

“Lilly successfully delivered on its sales and earnings expectations in 2006, and at the same time made significant progress on several key strategic issues,” Taurel uttered in the official statement. “Our adjusted earnings per share growth of 11 percent was among the best in the industry…”

So here are the numbers: Fourth-quarter net income dove thanks to charges and higher expenses - $132.3 million, or 12 cents, from $700.6 million, or 64 cents, a year ago. Wall Street expected 82 cents.

However, excluding one-time items, profit was $929.6 million, or 85 cents, compared with $871.6 million, or 80 cents, a year earlier. Looked at that way, one can say Lilly beat the forecasters. Revenue was up 9 percent to $4.25 billion, from $3.9 billion. For the full year, profit rose to $2.66 billion, or $2.45 a share, from $1.98 billion, or $1.81 a share a year earlier. Sales rose 7 percent to $15.7 billion from $14.7 billion.

The big product was Cymbalta: fourth-quarter sales hit $424.1 million, up 85 percent year over year, and 2006 sales were $1.3 billion, a 94 percent increase. But the Zyprexa schizphrenic treatment, which is the subject of very contentious litigation, didn’t do so well as fourth-quarter sales rose 12 percent, to $1.2 billion and 2006 sales inched up just 4 percent to $4.4 billion.

[tags]Cymbalta, Eli Lilly, Zyprexa[/tags]