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UK stocks emerged from the Easter holiday break with a directionless start on Tuesday, holding onto gains driven last week by signs Covid-19 infection rates were stabilizing in major European and American disease hotspots.
At 0822, the benchmark FTSE 100 index was down 5.65 points, or under 0.1%, at 5.837.01.
Pharmaceuticals company AstraZeneca rallied 6.7% after it revealed that it was assessing the potential of an existing blood cancer drug to treat Covid-19 patients.
AstraZeneca also reported positive results from a trial of a lung cancer treatment, and, in addition, said a venture with Merck had gained US approval for a treatment for the rare condition neurofibromatosis.
Fashion retailer Next gained 3.2% to £47.72 as it reopened its online businesses 'in a very limited way', having implemented additional Covid-19 safety measures and consulted with staff and the relevant union.
Aerospace and defence contractor Ultra Electronics climbed 3.3% to £20.10, even as it decided to delay the payment of its 2019 final dividend, citing uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Exhibition company Hyve firmed 1.3% to 29.74p despite confirming media speculation that it was planning an equity raising to shore up its balance sheet.
Pub and restaurant owner Mitchells & Butlers lost 2.5% to 217p, having been granted a temporary waiver of its debt obligations as it furlouged more than 99% of its staff in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.
Marketing platform Dotdigital rose 0.5% to 95.45p on confirming that business from it existing customers continued to grow, though it flagged a slowdown in securing new customers due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Specialist lender Paragon Banking fell 1.4% to 338p as it announced that it would not pay an interim dividend.
Paragon Banking said it planned to consider an appropriate dividend for the year as a whole with its full-year results in November.
German business park investor Sirius Real Estate gained 1.2% to 69.8p on reporting that only a small number of tenants experiencing difficulties due to the Covid-19 crisis had requested a deferral of rental and service charge payments.
The collection of rent and service charge income for the month of April had remained 'relatively robust', Sirius said, with over 75% of billing collected by working day seven, representing about 90% of the normal working pattern.
Cocktail bar owner Revolution Bars jumped 37% to 21p after lender NatWest had agreed to up the size of a debt facility to help it weather the Covid-19 crisis.
Landscape products group Marshalls shed 1.4% to 641p despite announcing that it was poised to source an additional £90m of debt funding from its banking syndicate to help it weather the Covid-19 crisis.
Recruitment consultancy Nakama was flat at 0.52p, having announced that although its cash position remained 'tight' it was confident it could survive through the Covid-19 crisis.
Nakama warned that its performance for the year through March 2020 would be 'marginally below' its previous expectations.
Virtual reality technology company VR Education added 1.9% to 7.9p after it signed a partnership agreement with US-based virtual animal dissections content creator VictoryXR.