Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) agreed that it won’t sell generic versions of the cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia until 2017, settling patent lawsuits with Merck & Co., court records show. Merck, the second-largest U.S. drugmaker, and Teva, the world’s largest generic-drug maker, filed an agreement yesterday in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, that said Teva wouldn’t sell copies of the drugs until April 25, 2017. The agreement settles lawsuits that Merck’s Schering unit filed in 2009 and 2010 to prevent Teva from selling generic versions of the drugs.
