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6. Eli Lilly, Pfizer — RIP tanezumab, again. How many red flags do you need to see before calling this one?Based: Indianapolis; New YorkStock: $LLY; $PFECEOs: Dave Ricks; Albert BourlaThe scoop: R&D programs can be hard to kill. Eli Lilly made that abundantly clear when they put solanezumab through its 3rd pivotal study in Alzheimer’s and came away empty-handed. So maybe it was no surprise that in 2013, with the anti-NGF pain drugs under a dark cloud lit up by lightning bolts, Lilly stepped up with a $1.8 billion deal to partner on tanezumab, Pfizer’s NGF which had been put on a hold in 2012.Tanezumab would make its return to Phase III, along with several other rivals, but the data that came out in April clearly underscored the lingering safety woes that arguably should have shut the whole thing down years ago. There was a clear dose-dependent increase in adverse events in the study, with advanced cases of advanced osteoarthritis and blown joints.Analysts like Tim Anderson had seen enough, with other drugs in the same class cut down in dosage in order to try and make them safe enough for what had been billed as a large new drug class in the pain field — which needs new remedies badly. The drug, though, stubbornly remains in Lilly’s and Pfizer’s late-stage pipeline as researchers study results. It’s going to take some doing to fix this program if it can be fixed.When is enough, enough already?