Analysts press Lilly chief for new strategy

The FDA put off approval of Bydureon, the once-weekly version of Byetta upon which Lilly has pinned so much hope.

Who'd like to trade places with Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter? Probably not many, not this week. First, the FDA put off approval of Bydureon, the once-weekly version of Byetta upon which Lilly has pinned so much hope. Then the company posted Street-beating earnings for the third quarter, but sales fell short, and Lechleiter got a grilling from analysts during his quarterly call yesterday.

How, analysts want to know, is Lilly going to make up for the steepest patent cliff in the industry, particularly now that Bydureon won't see the light of day until 2012? They pressed Lechleiter on his strategy, with Sanford Bernstein's Tim Anderson suggesting that it might be time for a new one.

Nope, Lechleiter maintained, at least during the earnings call. He and Lilly will stick to the one-small-to-medium-deal-at-a-time approach, aiming to add sales to the top line and drug candidates to the pipeline in piecemeal fashion, rather than with a big, whopping merger. "We're