Astrazeneca - Telegraph Pharma giant AstraZeneca had a double dose of good news yesterday after further clinical trials convinced regulators to have a change of heart and recommend its type 2 diabetes drug be approved for use in the US. The diabetes drug dapagliflozin, which is already marketed in the EU, is expected to have annual sales of about $440m (£270m) in the next five years. Separately, the company said its gout treatment also had positive results in its late-stage trials. Investors were cheered by hopes of new treatments coming to market as the group has been plagued by the billion dollar question of how to replace its revenues from its blockbuster products whose patents have expired, meaning rivals can copy them. Astra rose by 60.5 or 1.7pc to close up £35.18.5 Meanwhile, a sedative might be needed for investors in mid-cap digital sports rights group Perform and blue-chip retailer Sports Direct after the roller-coaster days the pair have had. Both were the biggest fallers in the indices on Thursday, but reversed that yesterday, each topping their respective leaderboards. After crashing 57.8pc the day before, Perform recovered 35, or 19.4pc, on Friday to close at 215p, while Mike Ashley's Sports Direct, which fell 12.6pc on Thursday, ended yesterday's trading 28, or 4.2pc, higher at 702p. Sports Direct even leap-frogged chip-maker ARM which was the FTSE 100"s biggest riser in early trade on reports Google could switch to using the ARM technology in a redesign of its servers. ARM, which also bought 3D computer game technology firm Geomerics yesterday, closed up 29p at £10.01. The FTSE 100 fell under the spell of Friday 13th, losing 5.29, or 0.1pc, to close the day at 6,439.96 points, meaning it has lost 1.7pc on the week. This was the sixth week running it has declined, the longest losing streak since 2008 as worries continue over the US Fed ending its stimulus programme. The FTSE 250 edged up yesterday, adding 21.92 to 15233.46. The markets have not been kind to recently listed Partnership Assurance, which was the biggest mid-cap faller. The insurer fell 7.3pc 274.3p - a long way from the 385p it was floated at in July. Peer RSA was the biggest blue-chip faller, losing 7.2 to 92.5p on heavy volumes as news broke its chief executive was resigning after he revealed a third profit warning in six weeks.