Pfizer and alleged victims of a drug trial it carried out in northern Nigeria hope to reach out-of-court settlement next month, lawyers told a Kano high court Monday, according to Agence France Presse.

“We have both agreed for the matter to be adjourned…to November 27 since we are making a push for final settlement out of court,” prosecution counsel Suleiman Na-Malam said. “We have agreed that the matter be adjourned to November 27, we are optimistic we will make progress on the settlement issue and then brief the court on what we will have agreed on,” Pfizer lawyer Anthony Idigbe told the court.

The Kano state government filed criminal and civil suits against Pfizer in 2006 demanding $2.75 billion in compensation for an allegedly illegal trial of its Trovan meningitis drug, which was administered to about 200 children during a triple epidemic of measles, cholera and meningitis in 1996 that claimed 30,000 lives. The trials allegedly caused the death of 11 children - five on Trovan and six in a control groupand - and led to deformity in 181, including paralysis, deafness, blindness and brain damage.

For its part, Pfizer has denied any wrongdoing, arguing the trial was conducted with the full knowledge and approval of the Kano state government. The Nigerian federal government later filed a separate suit against Pfizer before a high court in the administrative capital Abuja seeking $7 billion in damages.

In June in Dubai, Kano and the federal government jointly told Pfizer they would settle for a total of $ 650 million. Pfizer offered to pay them about $10 million dollars, but the offer was rejected, according to a source close to the negotiations.