Add another notch to Carl Ichan's belt. Eli Lilly and Co.
will acquire ImClone Systems Inc. for $70 per share or about $6.5 billion.
The deal was announced after ImClone rejected a sweetened bid from
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. Bristol first offered $60 a share July 31, then $62
and then threatened to go hostile last week. Bristol, which holds a 17% stake, wanted buy the rest of the shares in the
company.
Continue reading below
After Bristol-Myers, activist shareholder Icahn is one of ImClone's
largest shareholders with a 13% ownership. It was Icahn that announced
that the company had a mystery suitor and a better offer.
Lilly, which has had some difficulty bringing new drugs to market, hopes to turn ImClone's pipeline of three promising cancer treatments, which are near Phase 3 trials, into a "leading oncology franchise."
However, Britsol-Myers could make ImClone a hard pill to swallow for Lilly because it holds 61% of the North American sales rights to ImClone's only approved cancer treatment Erbitux.
Another issue Lilly must smooth out involves Merck KgA, which owns 90% of
Erbitux's international distribution rights.
Additionally, Bristol-Myers claims it has distribution rights to
ImClone's successor to Erbitux, called IMC-11F8, according to MarketWatch. - Maria Woehr
See Dealscape: Bristol-Myers could make ImClone a hard pill to swallow
