Lilly Poised To Cut R&D Spending In 2014

Eli Lilly & Co. says its profits will decline by as much as one-third this year on estimated revenue between $19.2 billion and $19.8 billion. The company also says that R&D expenditures for the year will range between $4.4 billion and $4.7 billion, a cut of about $1 billion from last year. Lilly faces a hit on the loss of patent protection for its antidepressant Cymbalta and its osteoporosis drug Evista by the end of the first quarter of 2014. A holdout among the major drug companies on restructuring R&D, Lilly has experienced a number of late-stage clinical failures, recently of ramucirumab, a breast cancer therapy candidate.