In Pfizer's earnings preview post earlier this week, the largest drug company on the globe released earnings for its Q1 period this morning. Was it a doozy? Find out by looking at the results here, then follow the Pfizer Q1 conference call below as I liveblog it. Here's a teaser -- Q1 revenues were $12.4 billion with $4.8 billion in income. That's the way to do it, right?

Remember to use the "Refresh" button on your web browser to refresh your screen every few minutes -- updates will be happening very frequently. All times below are in EST:

12:00pm -- waiting for the Pfizer Q1 conference call to begin.

12:01pm -- the call starts right on time. Excellent. Pfizer's announcement starts with a moment of silence for the recent Virgina Tech victims. (silence)

12:02pm -- disclaimers are being read before we begin. The entire Pfizer executive team is on tap for this call apparently. Opening remarks are going on with some generalities from a script. Zithromax and Zoloft went off patent protection (denting revenues), but Pfizer pulled through on Lipitor and other drugs.

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.