On Tuesday, Pfizer Inc, the pharmaceutical giant, announced that it has ended a Phase III trial which it was undertaking for figitumumab, an experimental drug for lung cancer, which has been tied to an unusual and unexpected number of deaths during testing among patients who were placed on it.

In October, the company had said that the drug was resulting in much higher number of side effects in patients who were on it as compared to those on a placebo or other treatments. That very month, Pfizer had ceased the enrollment of any new patients for the trial. The aim of the trial was to determine whether or not the medicine can be used as a "first-line treatment in patients with non-adenocarcinoma, nonsmall-cell lung cancer", and not the trial has been stopped altogether.

Pfizer has, however, insisted that it did not end the trial for safety reasons.

Also, the company shared that it is still in the process of testing other uses of the compound in the drug, which is a part of a promising class of drugs known as GF-1R inhibitors. These aim at blocking a substance in the body which has often been tied to stimulating the growth of cancer cells.