On January 21, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware granted summary judgment in favor of Novartis in patent litigation against generic drug manufacturer MSN related to Novartis’s Entresto® heart failure product.
Judge Richard G. Andrews held that the doctrines of issue and claim preclusion barred MSN from relitigating claim construction, validity, and infringement issues that had already been litigated in an earlier case between Novartis and MSN, where Novartis prevailed. Judge Andrews rejected MSN’s argument that the Federal Circuit changed the Delaware court’s prior claim construction and created new issues. He also rejected MSN’s fairness argument, finding MSN had a full and fair opportunity to pursue its challenges in the prior litigation. As a result, the court held that MSN was precluded from re-arguing claim construction and granted Novartis summary judgment on validity, and summary judgment that MSN’s ANDA product infringes the claim limitations of Novartis’s U.S. Patent No. 8,101,659.
Novartis was represented by Venable attorneys Shannon Clark, Laura Fishwick, Christina Schwarz, Nicholas Kallas, Jared Stringham, Christopher Loh, Gregory Manas, Erin Belfield, and Carrie Park, with support from Jessica Borriello.