Bristol-Myers Squib ups off for ImClone buyout

NEW YORK Bristol-Myers Squibb announced Monday that it would increase its offer for ImClone after the biotech rejected a previous offer as too low.

Bristol had previously offered $60 a share for the company, but has increased its offer to $62 a share, or $4.7 billion.  That’s still far below the $70 a share that ImClone chairman Carl Icahn has said an unnamed pharmaceutical company has offered.

ImClone and Bristol jointly market the cancer drug Erbitux (cetuximab), and Bristol owns 16.6 percent of ImClone’s stock.