German drugs and chemicals group Bayer AG said yesterday it had settled 888 lawsuits over its withdrawn cholesterol drug Baycol out of court, up from 785 at the time of its May update.

Bayer said on its website it had around 9,400 Baycol cases pending against it, an increase from 8,800 in May.

Bayer withdrew Baycol, linked with over 100 deaths, in August 2001.

It said in May it had spent $240 million (€205 million) on settling the 785 cases then, but did not say on Tuesday how much more it had spent since then.

"The settlement figure is not surprising, and the company is now more than half-way towards settling the estimated 1,600 serious cases," said WestLB Panmure analyst Mr Andreas Theisen.

Bayer also faces a move in the US to get several Baycol lawsuits categorised as a class action. "We expect to hear on the class action in the next couple of weeks and that is clearly the more important event," Mr Theisen said.