ICOS buyout recommendations

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, January 11, 2007

Institutional Shareholder Services still is urging a no vote on the ICOS buyout, but the higher offer from Eli Lilly and Co. swayed another proxy advisory service to favor the deal.

In a press release issued Friday afternoon, ICOS said Glass Lewis &Co. now likes the acquisition. Proxy Governance Inc., which also liked Lilly’s earlier offer, still favors it as well. But ISS’ opinion still carries weight with many shareholders.

Here’s ICOS raw press release, which buries the ISS recommendation a bit toward the bottom, http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070112005671&newsLang=en. Here’s the subsequent story from Reuters, http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=mergersNews&storyID=2007-01-12T231629Z_01_WNAS7257_RTRIDST_0_ICOS-ELILILLY-MERGER-URGENT.XML.

Shareholders will decide on the $2.3 billion deal on Jan. 25.

Lilly’s moves on ICOS are mentioned in a story about the biotech “arms race” under way among big pharma companies. Here’s that from Bloomberg, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=az6fTIp_3ZMk&refer=home.