NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Eli Lilly (LLY) - Get Report shares are up 1.32% to $77.12 in afternoon trading on Monday after the company announced that it would continue late-stage studies with Pfizer (PFE) - Get Report for their chronic pain drug, tanezumab, after the Food and Drug Administration lifted the partial hold on the trials of such drugs.

The FDA halted testing of the chronic pain treatment and others that work by blocking a protein called nerve growth factor due to nervous system complications that researches witnessed while testing the drugs on animals.

Eli Lilly will pay Pfizer $200 million up front as today's regulatory decision clears the way for further development of tanezumab. If approved, tanezumab could see annual sales of $100 million by 2020 analysts at Cowen told Reuters today.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates LILLY (ELI) & CO as a Buy with a ratings score of B. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate LILLY (ELI) & CO (LLY) a BUY. This is driven by a number of strengths, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, expanding profit margins and notable return on equity. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows weak operating cash flow."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• Compared to its closing price of one year ago, LLY's share price has jumped by 25.69%, exceeding the performance of the broader market during that same time frame. Regarding the stock's future course, although almost any stock can fall in a broad market decline, LLY should continue to move higher despite the fact that it has already enjoyed a very nice gain in the past year.
• The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.52, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. Although the company had a strong debt-to-equity ratio, its quick ratio of 0.77 is somewhat weak and could be cause for future problems.
• The gross profit margin for LILLY (ELI) & CO is currently very high, coming in at 82.16%. Regardless of LLY's high profit margin, it has managed to decrease from the same period last year. Despite the mixed results of the gross profit margin, the net profit margin of 8.36% trails the industry average.
• LLY, with its decline in revenue, slightly underperformed the industry average of 8.2%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 11.8%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
• LILLY (ELI) & CO's earnings per share declined by 40.3% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has suffered a declining pattern of earnings per share over the past two years. However, we anticipate this trend to reverse over the coming year. During the past fiscal year, LILLY (ELI) & CO reported lower earnings of $2.23 versus $4.31 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($3.16 versus $2.23).
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: LLY Ratings Report

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