Picture used for illustrative purpose. File

Tokyo stocks closed higher on Tuesday extending rallies on Wall Street, as investors welcomed news of a newly approved coronavirus treatment.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index advanced 1.35 percent, or 311.26 points, to end at 23,296.77, while the broader Topix index gained 1.13 percent, or 18.10 points, to 1,625.23.

"Equity investors are looking at the bright side of life with positive virus news outweighing the negative," Rodrigo Catril, senior strategist at National Australia Bank, said in a commentary.

Among them is "the news that the US Food and Drug Administration is working to expand access to a virus treatment involving blood plasma from recovered patients," he said. 

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Okasan Online Securities chief strategist Yoshihiro Ito said in a commentary that Tokyo shares were boosted by risk-on sentiment and active buying.

The dollar fetched 106.02 yen in Asian trade, against 105.98 yen in New York late Monday.

In Tokyo, Takeda Pharmaceutical was up 0.22 percent at 4,056 yen after it said it would sell its Japanese consumer healthcare business to US fund Blackstone Group at the value of 242 billion yen ($2.3 billion).

Nintendo dropped 2.25 percent to 56,030 yen after a report said it could start selling a new model of its Switch game console early next year.

Among other shares, telecom and investment giant SoftBank Group jumped 2.44 percent to 6,422 yen while Uniqlo casual wear operator Fast Retailing climbed 2.28 percent to 63,530 yen.

Auto giant Toyota rose 1.18 percent to 7,149 yen.

Agence France Presse