May 16 (Reuters) - Pfizer ( PFE ) will pay up to $250

million to settle more than 10,000 U.S. lawsuits over cancer

risks associated with its discontinued heartburn drug Zantac,

the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

The drugmaker was set to pay between $200 million and $250

million in the settlement, the newspaper reported, citing two

people briefed on the deal.

The settlement was disclosed in a court filing in Delaware

last week, and is aimed at reducing Pfizer's ( PFE ) potential

liability, the report added.

Pfizer ( PFE ) did not immediately reply to Reuters' request for

comment.

First approved in 1983, Zantac became the world's best

selling-medicine in 1988 and was one of the first drugs to top

$1 billion in annual sales.

However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked

drugmakers to pull Zantac and its generic versions off the

market in 2020, after a cancer-causing substance called NDMA was

found in samples of the drug.

(Reporting by Utkarsh Shetti in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita

Bhattacharjee and Varun H K)