Drug giant, Pfizer, has reached an agreement that will ultimately settle most of the lawsuits filed against the company over the side effects of two of it’s drugs, Celebrex and Bextra. It expects that the $894 million dollar agreement will settle more than 90 percent of the claims filed because the drugs are alleged to have caused major side effects to the plaintiffs - heart attacks and strokes.

Pfizer hopes that this will be accomplished by year’s end and also hopes that remaining claimants will be included in the settlement.

General Counsel Amy Schulman told The Associated Press that Pfizer will fight any remaining personal injury suits with court motions or at trial. “I don’t think either side has an interest in protracting this,” Schulman said in an interview.

Out of the total settlement, $745 million will go to settle personal injury cases, $60 million will cover settlements with attorneys general in the 33 states and the District of Columbia, and $89 million will cover consumer fraud class action cases over reimbursement for money spent on the two drugs. Two additional states, Louisiana and Mississippi, still have pending cases regarding Pfizer’s promotion of the drugs.

Schulman has indicated that Pfizer had been negotiating with opposing lawyers for some time. “Litigation can be distracting, and putting these matters behind us helps our shareholders and, most importantly, patients and doctors,” Schulman said.

Pfizer had removed Bextra from the market in 2005 after Merck & Company had removed it’s painkiller, Vioxx, from the market. Merck has begun paying a 4.8 billion dollar settlement that ends about 50,000 lawsuits that claimed Vioxx caused heart attacks, strokes and death.

Celebrex is currently the only Cox-2 inhibitor that the Food and Drug Administration has allowed to stay on the market. These drugs - Bextra, Celebrex and Vioxx - were superior to the usual nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs(NSAIDs) like aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen because they inhibited only the body enzymes that produced the inflamation(Cox-2). The NSAID drugs also inhibited the Cox-2 enzyme but, in addition, inhibited the Cox-1 enzyme which is important in keeping the mucous lining of the stomach intact. Without the mucous lining, stomach ulcers and bleeding could occur.

U.S. District Judge Elden Fallon, the federal judge overseeing much of the massive Vioxx litigation, on Wednesday capped plaintiffs’ attorney fees at 32 percent. In doing so he stated that he wanted to ensure that attorney fees were reasonable. He also indicated that attorneys could recover reasonable costs.

The judge gave several reasons for the limit, noting the global settlement reached last November streamlined the work of the participating attorneys. He wrote that he had an increased responsibility to keep fees reasonable because most of the claimants are elderly and frail after having “suffered life-threatening injuries” — or they are survivors of people who died of a heart attack or stroke — so they may not have been able to negotiate the most favorable contracts with attorneys.

Merck & Co., the maker of Vioxx, pulled the painkiller from the market in September 2004 after its own research showed it doubled risk of heart attack and stroke. According to an AP article, there are 871 law firms involved in the litigation which started about the same time as Merck pulled the drug off the market.

Claimants who are part of the Settlement agreement will initially receive 40 percent of their final settlement amount. That will initially go into an escrow account until attorney fees and any medical liens such as Medicare have been deducted. Initial payouts will only be for those who suffered heart attacks. Claimants who suffered strokes will begin to see payments starting in February.

More than 44,000 of 47,000 eligible claimants have enrolled in the Program according to the Official Vioxx Settlement website. This is more than 93 percent. As part of the agreement Merck had insisted that at least 85 per cent of those eligible had to be registered.