Eli Lilly said it agreed to acquire ImClone Systems in an all-cash deal the companies valued at $6.5 billion. The $70-per-share bid beat out Bristol-Meyers Squibb’s $62-per-share offer, according to The New York Times.
The deal solidifies the end of an independent ImClone, the company that was brought to fame after the company’s founder and former CEO, Samuel D. Waksal, and his friend Martha Stewart, to prison, according to NYT.
Lilly bought ImClone in hopes of selling Erbitux, ImClone’s only marketed product, although it has five other cancer drugs in clinical trials.
Bristol-Meyers, which owns 17 percent of ImClone, had originally bid $60-per-share but activist investor and chairman of ImClone, Carl Icahn rejected the offer as too low.
ImClone has said that the bid would not be subject to financing, an important note as the current credit crisis has made financing difficult.