Oil price slides as US and Iran pause fire; cancer treatments help AstraZeneca beat profit forecasts – as it happened

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Oil prices have dropped by 6% as traders bet that a pause in US attacks on Iran could prevent an escalation in the conflict that would further restrict global supply. Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, fell 6% to below $91 a barrel on Monday morning, after briefly dropping below $90 earlier in the morning. Futures prices hit $100 last week when the Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea. The US and Iran paused hostilities after 13 days offighting, with Iran saying it had stopped “retaliatory” attacks after two nights without American missiles. AstraZeneca must operate at “Chinese speed” to ensure it does not suffer the fate of the western automotive industry by losing out to more innovative rivals, the drug company’s boss has said. The FTSE 100 company is watching the rise of China’s pharmaceutical industry closely and collaborating to take drugs to global markets, but its chief executive, Pascal Soriot, said the US and European pharmaceutical sectors must focus on increasing the speed of innovation. “We have to make sure we don’t fall behind,” Soriot said. â€