Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, has paid $894m to settle most outstanding litigation around its two painkillers sparked by safety concerns after the withdrawal of Merck’s similar drug Vioxx in 2004.

The company said it had resolved ”substantially all” of the personal injury cases, consumer fraud cases and state attorneys-general claims involving its non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medicine Bextra, which was in the same class of drugs as Vioxx and that it voluntarily withdrew from the market in 2005.