12:11 PM EDT, 09/20/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The European stock markets closed lower in Friday trading as the FTSE in London was down 1.19%, Germany's DAX slipped 1.49%, France's CAC lost 1.51%, the Stoxx Europe 600 fell 1.42% and the Swiss Market Index dropped 1.03%.

The UK's public sector net debt, excluding public sector banks, reached 100% of gross domestic product at the end of August, the Office for National Statistics said, noting it "was 4.3 percentage points more than at the end of August 2023, and remains at levels last seen in the early 1960s."

The euro area's consumer confidence indicator increased by 0.5 percentage point to -12.9 points in September, according to flash data from the European Commission.

In Germany, producer prices of industrial products slid 0.8% year over year in August, unchanged from the previous month, data from the Federal Statistical Office showed.

In corporate news, shares of German automaker Mercedes-Benz Group declined on the DAX on Friday after it said Thursday that it cut its earnings outlook for 2024 amid a further dampening in macroeconomic conditions, especially in China.

Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX) said Friday that the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended marketing authorization for an updated Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine targeting the Omicron KP.2 subvariant in individuals six months and older.

The committee recommended a marketing authorization for AbbVie's (ABBV) ovarian cancer therapy, mirvetuximab soravtansine, and gave positive opinions to Merck's (MRK) anti-PD-1 therapy Keytruda in two gynecologic cancer indications, the companies said in separate statements Friday.