European shares edged up on Thursday after hitting 17-month closing highs a day earlier, with gains in drugmakers offsetting weaker banks, while Adidas rose after Nike's forecast-beating results.

By 1202 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 0.1 percent at 1,071.91 points, having ended 0.9 percent higher in the previous session --- its highest close since early October 2008.

The European benchmark index is up by around 66 percent from its lifetime low hit in March last year and has gained 2.4 percent so far in 2010.

"The market looks quite overbought on a short-term basis but the pull back that investors have been looking for hasn't really materialised," said Nick Serff, markets strategist at City Index.

Pharmaceutical shares were higher. GlaxoSmithKline gained 2.7 percent after Novartis handed back U.S. rights to a drug widely thought to be a generic copy of Glaxo's blockbuster Advair, reducing the threat of cheap copies of the lung drug in the company's biggest market.

Novartis was up 0.1 percent, while AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis and Roche rose 0.5 to 0.7 percent.

Banks reversed the previous session's hefty gains, with Barclays, HSBC, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank off 0.4 to 1.2 percent.

Some lingering concerns over the debt situation in Greece weighed on investor sentiment. Greek banks lost 5.1 percent, while National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank and EFG Eurobank fell 4.1 to 6.3 percent.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou urged the European Union on Thursday to make Athens a clear offer of support to resolve its debt problems at a summit in Brussels next week.

Greece denied a news report that it will resort to the IMF in early April if the European Union does not offer a concrete support plan at an EU summit later this month.

ADIDAS RISES

Among individual gainers, sports gear maker Adidas added 3.4 percent after peer Nike beat Wall Street expectations in its third quarter on Wednesday.

Gas producer BG Group rose 2.2 percent on market talk of Exxon Mobil's interest in the company, traders said. BG Group declined to comment on the talk. Exxon was not immediately available for comments.

Across Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 was up 0.2 percent, while Germany's DAX and France's CAC40 were flat.
Reuters; Balkans.com