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Tue, 3 Oct 2006 22:23:13 EDT
Industry
ImClone urges shareholders to reject Icahn demands
Last Updated: 2006-10-03 16:00:46 -0400 (Reuters Health)
BOSTON (Reuters) - ImClone Systems Inc. on Tuesday urged shareholders to reject a call by billionaire investor Carl Icahn to dislodge six of the biotechnology company's board members and elect an Icahn nominee.
New York-based ImClone, which makes the cancer drug, Erbitux, said its board has established a committee of six directors to supervise the process of responding to Icahn's solicitation to shareholders.
ImClone said Icahn's recommendations are "not in the best interest of the company's stockholders."
The move further escalates the boardroom battle and comes just weeks after Icahn, who holds a 13.85 percent stake in ImClone, called on shareholders to remove six directors, including the company's chairman, David Kies, and its interim chief executive, Joseph Fischer.
Icahn urged shareholders to vote via a consent solicitation for his proposal, which included the election of Icahn nominee Dr. Peter Liebert, chief of pediatric surgery at the Stamford Hospital in Connecticut.
A consent solicitation allows stockholders to act by written consents to proposed stockholder actions in lieu of voting in person or by proxy at an annual meeting.
ImClone, in turn, has recommended that shareholders not consent to Icahn's proposals and said they should not sign any white consent card sent to them by Icahn.
The company said it expects shortly to send shareholders a consent revocation statement setting out the board's case. It said it will file its statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
ImClone's shares fell 48 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $27.20 in afternoon trading on Nasdaq.
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