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... FOXNews.com - Business - Eli Lilly Earnings Top Estimates, Sales Outlook Disappoints SEARCH E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY FOXFAN CENTRAL Eli Lilly Earnings Top Estimates, Sales Outlook Disappoints Monday, April 18, 2005 The drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co.

(LLY) on Monday said its profit climbed in the first quarter, beating expectations on strong sales of newer products, but said its profit for the second quarter would be below current Wall Street estimates.

Its shares rose 6 cents to $58.13 on the New York Stock Exchange (search).

They have traded in a range of $50.34 and $76.95 over the past 52 weeks.

Earnings rose to $736.6 million, or 68 cents per share, in the January-March period from $400.4 million, or 37 cents per share, a year ago.

Year-ago figures reflect acquired in-process research and development expenses of $362.3 million.

Excluding that expense, and assuming the expensing of stock options, net income for the 2004 quarter was $671.4 million, or 62 cents per share.

The result for the latest quarter topped the company's previous estimate for earnings of 65 cents to 67 cents per share and the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, who were looking for earnings of 66 cents.

Sales rose 4 percent to $3.5 billion from $3.38 billion, and would have risen about 7 percent if not for roughly $130 million of reductions in wholesaler inventory levels during the quarter as a result of the company's recent restructur...

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