The sale of the company’s high-tech wound care business lifted results, but the company also posted a double-digit sales jump, sharply lifted its profit forecast and paid off its debt.

The bid by Lilly for the biotechnology company beat out an offer from Bristol-Myers Squibb, which markets ImClone’s cancer drug Erbitux in the United States along with ImClone.

The bid by Lilly for the biotechnology company beat out an offer from Bristol-Myers Squibb, which markets ImClone’s cancer drug Erbitux in the United States along with ImClone.

Eli Lilly’s offering for ImClone Systems would be higher than the hostile $4.7 billion offer that Bristol-Myers Squibb has already made for the shares of ImClone it does not already own.

The drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb’s previous offer of $60 a share had been rejected by ImClone.

ImClone threw a wrench into a $4.5 billion takeover effort by Bristol-Myers Squibb by saying it was entertaining a higher offer from a new suitor.

ImClone Systems, the maker of the anticancer drug Erbitux, said a $4.5 billion takeover bid by Bristol-Myers Squibb “substantially undervalues” the company.

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s unsolicited $60-a-share offer for the rest of ImClone Systems illustrates the growing appetite of big pharmaceutical companies for biotechnology drugs.

On a day when the major stock indexes were down significantly, the drug makers’ shares got little traction despite their fairly strong reports.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co on Thursday reported second-quarter earnings that beat expectations, fueled by higher sales of its prescription drugs, including blood-clot preventer Plavix.