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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rich Wolf who wrote (30748)	2/18/2002 12:28:58 PM
From: Jdaasoc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99280

The initial 'investment' was an outright puchase of IMCL stock by BMY through a tender offer I didn't know all the shares came from tender offer. I thought that besides the insiders 2 M share that remainder came from company's treasury shares. That changes the picture greatly since they definitely will run out of money before Erbitux comes to market. They are still on a fast track pace to build, at BMY's potential expense, a $250 M production plant in NJ. Construction was still going gangbusters the last time I checked 2 weeks ago. Anyone know details on Merck KaGA clinical trial status.

To: Rich Wolf who wrote (30748)	2/18/2002 1:01:21 PM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99280

Rich, BMY paid the first $200 MM of the $1 B progress payment, as far as I know. In the September Q, suddenly they have from nowhere a long term liability of $193 MM, which I believe is related to that "progress" payment and a corresponding increase in cash to $348 MM. Mind you, they have $242 in debt, so i am not sure what Ichan is after. Their net tangible is barely $.25/share. See: We have earned approximately $64,221,000 from license fees, contract research and development fees and royalties from collaborative partners. Additionally, we have approximately $205,759,000 in deferred revenue related to up-front payments received from our ERBITUX commercial agreement with BMS and E.R. Squibb, our ERBITUX development and license agreement with Merck KGaA and our BEC2 development and commercialization agreement with Merck KGaA. These amounts are being recognized as revenue over the expected lives of the respective agreements (see Note 12 of the consolidated financial statements) from their Sep 30/2001 report.

To: Rich Wolf who wrote (30748)	2/18/2002 1:03:50 PM
From: lh56	Respond to of 99280

"Who's Raiding ImClone? Matthew Herper, Forbes.com, 02.15.02, 1:41 PM ET Billionaire financier Carl C. Icahn is looking to buy $500 million worth of shares in ImClone Systems, the troubled biotech weighed down over concerns regarding one of its cancer drugs. Such a purchase would give Icahn about a third of the company at current prices. Icahn's plan to purchase the stock was made public by a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and was included in a press release sent out by ImClone (nasdaq: IMCL - news - people) this morning. In the same release, ImClone's management said that it had adopted a shareholder rights plan. The "poison pill" would distribute new shares to current stakeholders if anyone tried to acquire a greater than 15% stake in ImClone. But one analyst posits that the shareholder rights plan may not be so much a shield against Icahn as one against Bristol-Myers Squibb (nyse: BMY - news - people), ImClone's currently very irked marketing partner on cancer drug Erbitux. Earlier this week, ImClone rebuffed demands from Bristol-Myers that the record $2 billion deal between the two companies be renegotiated. "Icahn is trying to be viewed as the white knight," says Brian Rye, a biotech analyst at Raymond James and Associates. The shareholder rights plan, he says, is not surprising given the current public dueling between Bristol-Myers and ImClone. It would provide protection not only against Icahn, but also against Bristol should it initiate another tender offer. (When the drug giant acquired the rights to Erbitux, it also bought a 20% stake in ImClone.) A recap of the current relationship between the billionaire corporate raider and the biotech: Icahn bought a 5% stake in ImClone back in 1999. Since then, he hasn't exactly been an enemy of ImClone's current management. In 2000, Icahn tried to take over Visx (nyse: EYE - news - people), a medical device company that makes lasers for eye surgery. ImClone Chief Executive Samuel D. Waksal was one of five people Icahn tried to have put on Visx's board. So it would seem surprising if Icahn were trying to snatch the company from the control of Samuel Waksal and his brother Harlan, who serves as chief operating officer. Of course, anything's possible. But Rye thinks the real threat is Bristol-Myers. Among Bristol's demands was that ImClone lower the original price it paid for Erbitux--allowing the drug giant to not pay milestone payments it could owe in the future. It also reportedly asked that the Waksal brothers be asked to leave the company until the drug is approved. In any case, says Rye, all this sideshow is a distraction from the real drama. How long will it take to get Erbitux, a supposedly breakthrough treatment for colon cancer, past the U.S. Food and Drug Administration? The FDA rejected ImClone's application for the drug in December. ImClone and Bristol-Myers are scheduled to meet with regulators to discuss concerns about the drug on Feb. 26. Bristol-Myers has said that it would wait until that meeting to decide what it will do about its partnership with ImClone. "Is Carl Icahn part of the FDA?" asks Rye. "Does this have any bearing on the approval of Erbitux? No." So far, the news on the drug has not been good. Many believe that it works, but it appears that ImClone's clinical trials may not prove that beyond any doubt. This could necessitate new clinical trials. This would neccesitate new, time-consuming clinical trials. That's a bad thing, given that competitors like AstraZeneca (nyse: AZN - news - people), and Genentech (nyse: DNA - news - people) and OSI Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: OSIP - news - people) are working on competing drugs."