LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks opened higher Friday, while AstraZeneca was one of the few decliners in the FTSE 100 after it said the US Food and Drug Adminstration has published a Complete Response Letter requiring more detail on its diabetes treatment.
The pharmaceutical giant traded down 0.7% after it said the US FDA sent the letter on the New Drug Application made for the fixed-dose combination of saxagliptin and dapagliflozin for the treatment of adult patients with type 2 diabetes. The letter said more clinical data will be required to support the application for the drug, and AstraZeneca said it will work with the US regulator to take the appropriate next steps on the application.
The conclusions made by the FDA are not expected to affect the individual approvals for saxagliptin and dapagliflozin in treating type 2 diabetes.
The FTSE 100 index was up 0.7% at 6,381.23 points, the FTSE 250 traded up 0.% at 17,037.52, and the AIM All-Share was up 0.3% at 738.77.
In Europe, the French CAC 40 index was up 0.5% and the German DAX 30 was up 0.75.
The market movements come before the eurozone consumer price index is due to be released at 1000 BST, which is expected to show the trading bloc remains in deflation. The reading is forecast to decline 0.1% year-on-year in September, matching the number seen in August. The inflation reading comes ahead of a key European Central Bank meeting next Thursday, with some analysts expecting President Mario Draghi to extend the central bank's quantitative easing programme.
On Thursday ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said new measures are required to achieve price stability as core inflation is clearly below the target.
"The ECB is using the monetary policy instruments available - but it is quite obvious that in the current macroeconomic situation additional sets of instruments are necessary," Nowotny said at a conference in Warsaw.
Nowotny noted that a fall in oil and raw material prices are what has caused inflation to miss the ECB's forecast of 0.1% in 2015 and 1.1% next year. However, analysts at Commerzbank noted that core rate of consumer prices, which excludes energy prices was also likely to miss forecasts.
Elsewhere in the economic calendar, eurozone trade balances data are at 1000 BST, US industrial production and capacity utilisation are both at 1315 BST, a preliminary reading of the Reuters/Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is at 1500 BST and JOLTS Job Openings data are at 1600 BST.
In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index ended up 1.1%, the Hang Seng was up 0.7%, and the Shanghai Composite was up 1.6%.
Elsewhere in the London market, oil producers were amongst the top gainers in the FTSE 100 after the price of Brent oil crept back above USD50 a barrel, to trade at USD50.42. Brent was quoted at USD48.81 barrel at the London close on Thursday, following a marginally stronger-than-expected US inflation reading.
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' shares were up 1.7% and BP shares up 1.6%.
Meanwhile, shares in Burberry Group continued to trade lower after the fashion retailer said on Thursday that exposure to the slowing Chinese economy continued to take a toll in the first half of its financial year, prompting the company to take further cost-cutting measures. Shares were down 0.5% on Friday morning.
Evraz said production of all of its products and commodities rose in the third quarter from the second, but in the first nine months of 2015 most production areas were down year-on-year. Coking coal production was the only area to experience a quarter-on-quarter fall, and coking coal production since the start of the year is also down.
The Russian miner and steel maker said crude steel production rose to 3.5 million tonnes in the third quarter of 2015, up 3.3% from 3.4 million tonnes in the immediately previous quarter on the back of completed repair works at Russian steel mills. That brought crude steel production for the first nine months of 2015 to 10.8 million tonnes, which is down 7.4% from 11.7 million tonnes a year earlier.
The company was the best performer in the FTSE 250, up 3.7%.
Volution Group shares were up 4.9% after it said it swung to a pretax profit in the year to the end of July thanks to lower financing costs and exceptional items, though its profit, even stripping out those one-offs, surged higher as it grew revenue despite significant currency translation challenges.
The ventilation products supplier made a pretax profit of GBP15.5 million in the year, compared to a GBP15.5 million loss a year earlier, helped by substantially lower finance costs, down to GBP2.0 million from GBP21.2 million, and lower one-offs, which totalled GBP700,000 compared to GBP7.8 million. The financing and one-offs were related to the group's flotation in London in June 2014.
On AIM, Teathers Financial said it has invested GBP100,000 in Leni Gas Cuba Ltd, a company chaired by well-known AIM entrepreneur David Lenigas.
Leni Gas Cuba was formed with a particular focus on the oil and gas industry in Cuba, and is one of the companies looking to take advantage of thawing relations between Washington and Havana.
Teathers is taking 5.0 million shares at 2 pence each to make the investment in Leni Gas Cuba, equivalent to a 1.02% stake in the company, valuing Leni Gas Cuba at about GBP9.8 million. Teathers shares were up 12%.
By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1
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