European Stocks Erase Losses; U.S. Futures, Asian Shares Fall

By Sarah Jones

July 2 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks erased losses. AstraZeneca Plc led drugmakers higher after a U.S. court upheld a patent for its second-best selling product. U.S. index futures and Asian shares declined.

UBS AG, Switzerland's biggest bank, advanced after signaling it didn't need fresh capital.

Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index added 0.2 percent to 283.45 at 8:36 a.m. in London, reversing earlier losses of as much as 0.5 percent. Futures on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index slipped 0.1 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index decreased 1.2 percent.

AstraZeneca, the U.K.'s second-largest drugmaker, rallied 6.2 percent to 2,262 pence after a U.S. court upheld a patent on Seroquel antipsychotic.


U.S. District Judge Joel Pisano in Trenton, New Jersey, yesterday rejected claims by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Novartis AG that AstraZeneca failed to include key information during the application process before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the world's second-largest drugmaker, gained 2.1 percent to 1126.6 pence. France's Sanofi-Aventis SA added 1.5 percent to 42.35 euros.

UBS rose 2.8 percent to 20.86 francs after Chairman Peter Kurer told Finanz & Wirtschaft in an interview that the bank won't need fresh capital.

He declined to comment on second-quarter earnings, or on speculation that that the bank may be a takeover target, the newspaper said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Jones in London at sjones35@bloomberg.net.