Bristol-Myers Squibb/ImClone Systems
Announced: July 2008
Fresh off his MedImmune score, Carl Icahn bought a big stake in ImClone and started urging a sale. Bristol-Myers was already working with ImClone (yes, the same ImClone made famous by the Martha Stewart scandal) on the cancer drug Erbitux and has a 16.6% stake in the company. Icahn rejected the first bid as too low.
It may be: Erbitux has the potential to be a blockbuster, and is currently in testing to treat several different kinds of cancer in addition to its approved uses for colon, neck, and head tumors. But it's also ImClone's only approved drug, and much of its pipeline is still in mid-stages of development. "For a biotech to get a top price, it has to have drugs with a 90% likelihood of approval," says M&A lawyer Steven Wilcox of Boston firm Ropes & Gray. "They don't really have anything like that at this point."
Bristol-Myers, however, is under the gun, as its top-selling drug Plavix (which treats blood clots and is fourth among all U.S. drugs in sales, at $3.9 billion) is facing competition from similar forthcoming drugs by Eli Lilly and others.
NEXT: Eisai/MGI Pharma ($3.4 billion)
Last updated September 08 2008: 10:23 AM ET
RSS Source: Dealogic
