Now who’s playing chicken? The amusing exchange of letters last week between ImClone chair Carl Icahn and Bristol-Myers ceo Jim Cornelius (here and here) was all about maneuvering as they attempted to find the best deal. Icahn, you may recall, found a mystery suitor willing to pay $70 a share, rejecting Jim’s $60 offer and his insistence that Bristol holds rights to a follow-up to the Erbitux cancer drug.

Now, Bristol’s cfo, Jean-Marc Huet told a Merrill Lynch pharma conference in London that the drugmaker may walk away from its offer. “There are situations in which we are willing to walk away,” Huet told the crowd, according to Dow Jones. While ImClone may make a “very nice bolt-on acquisition…you should never fall in love with an asset.” So, yes, just walk away…