Analysts took note in September when, in the span of a month, Eli Lilly delivered negative results from five phase 3 trials on agents ranging from blood thinners to cancer therapy. The disappointments underscored the difficulties faced by the Indianapolis-based drug maker, which lost patent protection on its best-selling bipolar drug Zyprexa (olanzapine) last year and will lose US market exclusivity in December on its popular antidepressant Cymbalta (duloxetine).

Despite the turmoil, investors still seemed unfazed as of mid-September, when Lilly's stock prices stood $10 higher than in the same period last year. The poor trial outcomes of the company did not put off the market because “the failures they have had did not come with high expectations [from investors] to begin with,” explains Tim Anderson, an analyst with the wealth management group Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. In part, Lilly gave itself a boost when it mined existing data from two failed trials of the Alzheimer's disease drug solanezumab and found that the drug possibly slowed progression in mild to moderate presentations of the disease. “The fact that there is some positivity there is more than what was expected,” says Anderson. Here's a look at the hiccups investors looked past:

7 Aug – Post-menopausal women suffering from back pain due to osteoporotic vertebral fractures fared no better when they were treated with a teriparatide injection, called Forteo, in a 710-person comparative study than when they received Actonel (risedronate).

24 Aug – Initial results from two 1,000-person studies of patients with Alzheimer's disease receiving solanezumab did not meet either study's cognitive or functional endpoints. However, when Lilly combined data from the two trials and excluded severe cases, it found potentially positive effects in participants with mild to moderate symptoms of the disease.

26 Aug – In a comparative study involving 10,300 participants, Lilly's blood-thinner drug Effient (prasugrel) did no better in preventing heart attacks, strokes or other forms of cardiovascular death than clopidogrel.

29 Aug – The company halted a trial of the late-stage schizophrenia drug pomaglumetad methionil when an independent analysis of data showed the trial would probably not meet end points outlined for the 1,100 enrolled participants.

6 Sept – A combination treatment for nonsquamous non–small-cell lung cancer that included an injection of Alimta (pemetrexed) failed to improved overall survival of patients in a 900-person study.