Drug for US addicts lifts Indivior shares by 8pc
Addiction treatment maker Indivior lifted the markets as its experimental drug to fight opioid addiction was endorsed in the US.
President donald trump last week declared that the abuse of opioids – strong painkillers – was a health emergency.
More than 183,000 Americans are estimated to have died from an overdose involving a prescription opioid between 1999 and 2015.
Yesterday, the advisory committee to the US Food and drug Administration voted 18-1 that indivior’s injectable drug – RBP6000 – could benefit addicts. it gave the UK firm a boost months after shares plunged following a US court ruling that cleared the way for a generic rival to its addiction drug Suboxone Film. Shares rose 7.8pc, or 29p, to 400.6p.
investors piled into insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor as it said nearly half a million businesses across the UK are in sig- nificant financial distress, and warned that even more could be pushed to the wall should the Bank of England put interest rates up, as expected, this morning.
Begbies said almost 250,000 of the 448,011 distressed companies had negative net worth and had managed to survive only thanks to low interest rates. its shares rose 5.38pc, or 3.38p, to 66.12p.
Shares in plastics and packaging maker Smurfit Kappa rose along with its sales, which are up 4pc over the third quarter. But profits fell 1pc to £280m as it battled higher prices for raw materials.
Profits were up 3pc in Europe and down 8pc in the Americas, while the firm is now the largest packaging producer in Russia, having snapped up a corrugated plant in Moscow. Shares rose 2.85pc, or 64p, to 2308p.
BHP Billiton and other mining stocks climbed, helped by a rebound for metals prices, with nickel reaching a two-year high.
BHP’s Americas president danny Malchuk said it was on the hunt for a new copper project amid predictions the market could grow by more than 50pc by 2035 thanks to demand for electric cars. its shares rose 3.27pc, or 44.5p, to 1407p.
Glencore rose 3.46pc, or 12.55p, to 375.55p. Anglo American rose 3.42pc, or 48.5p, to 1468.5p.
Contango Holdings, which plans to snap up resource assets, started its first day of trading on the London Stock Exchange, valued at around £1.23m.
chairman Brian McMaster said they were likely to buy ‘some kind of hard rock’ as opposed to oil and gas, but he would consider any good project in the resource sector. Shares closed at 4p.
oil has now stayed above $60 for nearly a week, amid signs the cartel of oil-producing countries, opec, had significantly improved compliance on production cuts and that Russia was also expected to stick with the deal.
it helped the Euro Stoxx oil and gas index rise 1pc. But oil major
Shell, which reports third-quarter results today, dropped 0.25pc, or 6p, to 2359.5p on its class A shares, and 0.2pc, or 4.5p, to 2417p on its B shares.
Boosted by its strong earnings announcement on tuesday, BP rose 0.74pc, or 3.8p, to 514p.
Annuity provider Just Group rose despite reporting a fall in total retirement sales for the third quarter: from £650m in 2016 to £518m this quarter.
the firm, which specialises in annuities for people with reduced life expectancy, climbed 0.32pc, or 0.5p, to 154.7p.
All that helped the FtSE Allshare close up 0.06pc, or 2.32 points, to 4120.01. the pound spiked in early trading amid strong manufacturing figures and expectations of a rate rise today.