Six Spaniards died after taking drugs to combat cholesterol, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.

A spokeswoman for the ministry said it was not yet clear if they had been taking the Baycol/Lipobay drug withdrawn from the market by its producer, the German giant Bayer AG, last week.

"What is clear is that all the six people were elderly and died from taking drugs to beat cholesterol containing cerivastatin," she told Reuters.

Lipobay is known as Baycol in the U.S. market.

The Health Ministry spokeswoman said the medicine may have been Lipobay or another brand of anti-cholesterol drug.

Bayer, Germany's biggest drug group, faces lawsuits, falling shares and an uncertain future in the pharmaceuticals business after 52 deaths have been reported to have occurred in connection with the drug.

Bayer has retracted the drug from global markets as fears of large compensation payouts burdened its shares, which have nose-dived by as much as 28 percent following news of lawsuits over the deaths.

The side effect of muscle weakness has been particularly notable among patients treated at the same time with another cholesterol-lowering drug, gemfibrozil.