NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Sometime in the weeks ahead, Pfizer, the No. 1 drugmaker by market value, will likely get even bigger, becoming the largest drugmaker by sales when it officially swallows Pharmacia.

The combined company expects to take in $53 billion in revenue this year, kicking Merck & Co. from the top spot.

The new, larger Pfizer is lauded for its arsenal of money-making drugs, staggering research budget and marketing muscle. But the stock has made little progress since the deal's announcement six months ago despite near-universal love on Wall Street.

Of the 26 analysts that follow Pfizer (PFE: Research, Estimates), 13 rate it a "strong buy" while 11 call it a "buy," according to First Call. One analyst has a "hold" on Pfizer, and just one advises selling the stock.

To gauge Wall Street opinion on a stock, First Call uses a one-to-five scale, with one being the most bullish. Pfizer scores a 1.2 on this scale versus 2.6 for the pharmaceutical group and 2.2 for the entire universe of stocks.

All the optimism about Pfizer is one reason why Bernie Schaeffer, of Schaeffer's Investment Research, is avoiding the stock. "It can be an indication that all the money that can ultimately be committed to it has already been so," Schaeffer said.

Money may have chased Pfizer for good reason. The drugmaker is one of only seven U.S. companies to enjoy a "AAA" credit rating, keeping its borrowing costs low. There's the breadth of its drug pipeline, protected from patent expirations for years to come, a reasonably valued stock, and the Pharmacia deal, which looks set for final approval from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

"The merger creates a Goliath," said David Saks, who manages the Saks MedScience fund and does not own shares of either Pfizer or Pharmacia. "What they have done is created the best of the best."

The combined company will have 12 drugs with annual sales of more than $1 billion, led by the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, which took in $6.4 billion in 2001.

Pfizer's major drugs include Viagra, for sexual dysfunction, Zoloft, to treat depression, and Lipitor. Pfizer also makes the heart drug Norvasc, and over-the-counter remedies including Rolaids, Benadryl , Listerine and Sudafed. (Check the stock of Pfizer and other big drugmakers here).

That arsenal will only grow once Pfizer, with a market value of about $190 billion, gets clearance to buy Pharmacia for a little under $60 billion. Company officials expect to finish the deal by the end of March.

Peapack N.J.-based Pharmacia makes Rogaine for hair loss and Nicorette over-the-counter consumer products. It has a glaucoma treatment, Xalatan, an anxiety treatment, Xanax, and the leading overactive bladder treatment, Detrol.

Pharmacia fills a void of Pfizer's with Camptosar, a treatment for colorectal cancer. The acquisition will also give Pfizer control over arthritis drug Celebrex, which the companies have sold jointly since 1998. It also gives Pfizer Eplerenone, a heart disease treatment.

Arthur Wong, who covers the company for Standard & Poor's, says the combined Pfizer-Pharmacia will have very little product overlap. "The only possible negative we can see is, they've gotten to such a size it's almost [the case] that to continue to grow, they have to continue to do these kind of transactions," Wong said.

Saks of the Saks MedScience fund said: "In order to keep winning the Super Bowl, they have to score more touchdowns. Coming up with blockbuster after blockbuster is hard."

New York-based Pfizer, which sports a 1.9 percent dividend yield, probably earned $1.58 a share last year, according to analysts' forecasts compiled by First Call, and is expected to earn $1.84 a share this year, on average.

That means Pfizer, whose shares traded at $30.94 Monday afternoon, trades at about 16.7 times expected 2003 earnings. That's below what First Call says is 19.4 times earnings for the drug group for this year and nearly equal to the 16.9 times earnings for the Standard & Poor's 500.

Pfizer shares have gained about 6 percent since the merger was announced July 15, slightly out-performing the market, but underperforming the Amex Pharmaceutical Index, which is up about 15 percent.

Christopher Bonavico, who runs the $76 million Transamerica Premier Aggressive Growth fund, says the bigger Pfizer will benefit from its large budget for research and development, estimated at $7 billion this year. Its size, said Bonavico, will also give it greater bargaining power with insurance companies trying to get cheaper drugs. Bonavico's fund owns both Pfizer and Pharmacia.

"The pharmaceutical business has become a business of economies of scale," said Bonavico.

Yet the merged Pfizer-Pharmacia will have about 11 percent of the worldwide drug market, according to the company, giving regulators few antitrust concerns.

"You've got to belive it will happen pretty soon," said Richard Evans, who follows Pfizer for Sanford Bernstein. "There's no economic basis for blocking the merger."

As the biggest announced deal of 2002, the marriage seems to come from an era of blockbuster acquisitions that created companies like Citigroup (SGP: Research, Estimates) and AOL Time Warner (AOL: Research, Estimates), the parent company of CNN/Money. That bigger-is-better strategy has lost favor among some investors.

Morningstar analyst Todd Lebor points out that Pfizer's biggest-selling drugs aren't facing patent expirations soon, a problem for companies like Schering-Plough (SGP: Research, Estimates), which last year lost Claritin to generic competition, and Eli Lilly (LLY: Research, Estimates), which lost Prozac to the same fate. Lipitor keeps its patent until 2010, Viagra until 2011 and Celebrex until 2013.

Lebor attributes the relative standstill in Pfizer's stock to uncertainty over what profits will look like when the two entities join. In addition, with about half of all sales coming from just five drugs, Pfizer's revenue stream is riskier than that of more diversified drug companies.

Saving money is one motivation for the merger. Pfizer expects to save $1.4 billion this year and $2.2 billion in 2004 from the merger, but the company has not said how much of that would come from cutting jobs.

Pfizer is no stranger to big acquisitions or shuffling its holdings. In 2000, it bought Warner- Lambert $90 billion, and last December sold its Adams chewing gum business for $4.2 billion to London's Cadbury Schweppes, adding to Pfizer's $12.5 billion in cash.

Yet Schaeffer of Schaeffer's Investment Research said that, paradoxically, Pfizer's well-publicized success may turn out to be its biggest headache. "It makes the stock vulnerable to any worse-then expected development," he said.