NEW YORK (AP) _ Drug developer Eli Lilly & Co. said Friday it completed a tender offer worth about $6 billion for ImClone Systems Inc., marking Lilly’s biggest buyout in the biotechnology industry. The company announced the $70-per-share tender offer in October. The bid topped two prior offers from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., which is ImClone’s partner on the blockbuster drug Erbitux. Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly bought about 85.4 million shares of New York-based ImClone, representing about 95 percent of the outstanding stock. The company plans to complete the buyout through a short-form merger on or about Nov. 24. in which all remaining shares of ImClone will be converted into the right to receive $70 per share in cash. With the buyout, Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly adds the blockbuster colon and head and neck cancer drug Erbitux to its list of products. Eli Lilly, which sells a range of treatments from Byetta for diabetes to Cymbalta for depression, has been bulking up its biotechnology capabilities along with several other large pharmaceutical companies. Eli Lilly already gets about a third of its annual revenue from biotechnology drugs, which are developed using living cells instead of chemical compounds. The company has already invested $1 billion into a biotech center in Indianapolis, while building a biotech facility in Ireland.
