Martha biotech gets £3.4bn bid

Imclone, the biotech company at the heart of America's domestic doyenne Martha Stewart's fall from grace, today received a $6billion (£3.4billion) takeover offer.

The offer of $70 a share was $10 a share higher than the previous bid from Bristol-Myers Squibb, the US drugs giant.

Chairman and activist investor Carl Icahn would not identify the new bidder but rejected the Bristol-Myers offers.

ImClone makes a cancer drug called Erbitux but is better-known away from Wall Street for being the stock at the centre of Martha Stewart's insider dealing conviction.

The domestic goddess sold shares in ImClone in 2001 after receiving a tip that it was about to announce a negative ruling from regulators on one of its drugs.

The day following her sale, the shares fell 16%. Stewart was later sent to prison for her actions.

ImClone's shares jumped by 8% on the news of the latest bid.