Bristol-Myers Squibb on Thursday posted quarterly earnings that beat forecasts, helped by higher sales of blood clot preventer Plavix and schizophrenia treatment Abilify, and the company announced an additional $1 billion in planned cost cuts.

Eli Lilly said on Thursday that second-quarter earnings rose on higher sales of its prescription drugs and sharply lower taxes, but the company cut its 2008 profit forecast due to special charges.

Stocks declined as oil resumed its ascent and investors braced for the next batch of corporate earnings.  A drop in home sales and a jump in jobless claims above the key 400,000 mark added some pressure.

New evidence of the power of the multi-billion dollar impotence drugs. A study just out in the peer-reviewed "British Medical Journal" says that the elderly are having sex more often, possibly due to the popular pills for erectile dysfunction.

Drug developer Eli Lilly will buy SGX Pharmaceuticals for about $64 million in cash in an effort to expand its drug discovery efforts, the companies said Tuesday.

A fight has erupted in Congress over the question of whether drug makers and other companies should be allowed to keep patents they obtained by misrepresentation or cheating, The New York Times reports.

Merck and Eli Lilly reported earnings today, and CNBC asked the pharmaceutical companies’ chief executives and an analyst to discuss the results and the sector as a whole.

Eli Lilly Monday posted lower-than-expected quarterly earnings, as disappointing sales of its Byetta diabetes drug overshadowed growing demand for its other medicines, sending shares 3.4 percent lower.

Pfizer and Nektar Therapeutics said Wednesday clinical trials of the inhaled insulin Exubera found increased cases of lung cancer, leading Nektar to end talks with potential partners to market the product.

Ahead of the weekend, CNBC asks the experts where investors should place their bets.

The pharmaceutical sector faces the looming "patent cliff" -- but Credit Suisse's Catherine Arnold finds lots of opportunities in the sector for the careful investor.