New York-based Pfizer Inc announced it is planning to resolve lawsuits involving its painkiller Bextra (withdrawn from the market in 2005) and arthritis drug Celebrex (generically celecoxib) by paying out - through three separate tentative settlements - for a total of $ 894 million dollars.

One of the settlements would also resolve claims by 33 states and the District of Columbia primarily related to promotional practices for Bextra.

Bextra and Celebrex are both in the same class of painkillers, known as COX-2 inhibitors, the same as Merck & Co´s Vioxx, which was withdrawn in 2004 after being linked to heart attacks among long-time users. Merck settled the thousands of suits through payments amounting to $ 4.85 billion dollars.

Pfizer said it has taken a pre-tax charge of $ 894 million dollars in the third quarter for the proposed settlements. The company, admitting to no wrongdoing, still sells Celebrex, which generated earnings of $ 1.2 billion dollars in the first half of this year.

Pfizer said it had decided to move forward with the settlements to eliminate the legal distractions, and that the money should also be sufficient to cover personal injury cases that have not yet been resolved.

"Putting all these matters behind Pfizer makes good sense from the company point of view and with respect to patients and doctors," Pfizer General Counsel Amy Schulman said.

Bextra was withdrawn by the company from the market in April 2005 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cited its possible risk of causing heart problems, and reports of a potentially fatal skin reaction called Stevens-Johnson syndrome in people taking the drug. In 2004, the drug had generated sales of $ 1.25 billion dollars.

Schulman declined to provide a breakdown of how much of the money being set aside would satisfy Bextra claims, or Celebrex lawsuits. But she said federal and state courts have ruled there is no reliable scientific evidence that Celebrex increases risk of heart attack and stroke.