Pfizer quarterly earnings preview

Pfizer, Inc. (NYSE: PFE), like many pharmaceutical companies, has been dealt a decent dose of setbacks recently, from the torcetrapib nightmare situation to having to let go about 10,000 employees to lowered forecasts. I won't go on, but the industry in which Pfizer operates is a mess at this time.

Torcetrapib was Pfizer's purported future best seller (it's gone) and patent protection is about to run out on Lipitor, the blockbuster and billion-dollar cholesterol drug. The pharmaceutical industry will return (in some way), but should you be buying shares in the meantime hoping for a return soon? That's your call.

Pfizer's upcoming quarterly results this Friday at noon EST call for analyst estimates of $0.57 EPS with a 9.26% growth rate in quarterly earnings and a 12.3% growth rate on sales. Will the bad news Pfizer is awash in destroy these estimates? Probably not, as the company's bad news on torcetrapib was to affect future earnings and Lipitor's problem is not here yet either. Combine this with the upcoming layoffs and the rest of the quarters in 2007 will be quite a ride from an investment perspective.