Eli Lilly & Co´s $ 6.5 billion dollars acquisition of biotech ImClone Systems at $ 70-per-share was done with the advice of UBS bankers, including the intervention of its co-head of investment banking Rick Leaman. The price paid by Eli Lilly tops an earlier $ 62 bid from New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

After the purchase was announced yesterday by ImClone and Eli Lilly, it was disclosed that UBS analyst Roopesh Patel had told Eli Lilly on October 1st that the company´s $ 70 offer “would not be attractive'' for Eli Lilly shareholders.

A dozen Wall Street firms, including UBS, bolstered the so-called ``Chinese wall'' between investment banking and research as part of settlements in 2003 and 2004 with then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and regulators.

Investigators had been probing whether firms hyped stocks to keep banking clients happy. Wall Street firms sometimes suspend research coverage of a stock if their bankers are working on a transaction, said securities law professor Jeffrey Haas.

Haas said the result of the contradictory information would be troubling him if he were on the Eli Lilly board. “I've got investment bankers telling me $ 70 a share makes sense, whereas a research analyst at the same company is saying otherwise.''

“UBS maintains a strict separation between banking and research,'' said Douglas Morris, a UBS spokesman, who declined to make Patel's most recent research available. Patel continues to rate Eli Lilly shares “neutral.''

In last week´s research note to clients, Patel said that at $ 70, Eli Lilly would be paying a “full” price for ImClone, and not getting any discount for bearing the risk that the drugs it is developing do not succeed.

Daniel Winnike, a lawyer at Fenwick & West LLP in Mountain View, California, said Patel´s opinion may help Eli Lilly win approval for the transaction from ImClone shareholders.

According to industry consultants, bankers for both sides could split $ 50 to $ 60 million dollars in advisory fees.

Zurich-based UBS is the world´s fourth-biggest merger adviser this year, according to Bloomberg data, ranking behind Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup, and JPMorgan.