The estate of Henrietta Lacks has reached a settlement agreement with pharmaceutical company Novartis over the unauthorized use of her cells, which were harvested without consent in 1951 and later became fundamental to major medical breakthroughs.
The settlement terms remain confidential after being completed in Maryland federal court this month.
Both the Lacks family and the Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company issued a joint statement saying they are “pleased they were able to find a way to resolve this matter filed by Henrietta Lacks’ Estate outside of court” while declining to provide additional details.
This marks the second legal resolution for the estate, which has filed multiple lawsuits against biomedical corporations for profiting from what they describe as a discriminatory healthcare system that exploited African American patients like Lacks. The agreement concludes the legal battle between one of the world’s major pharmaceutical manufacturers and the family of a woman who succumbed to cervical cancer at 31 years old and was laid to rest in an unmarked burial site.
The 2024 legal action demanded Novartis pay “the full amount of its net profits obtained by commercializing the HeLa cell line,” referring to what the lawsuit characterized as “stolen cells.”
Medical professionals at Johns Hopkins Hospital extracted Lacks’ cervical tissue in 1951 without her awareness, and these cells from her cancerous tumor became the first human cells capable of indefinite growth and division in laboratory conditions. The HeLa cell line revolutionized modern medicine, facilitating numerous scientific breakthroughs and medical developments, from genetic research to COVID-19 vaccine creation, yet the Lacks family received no financial benefit despite the immeasurable contributions to scientific progress.
Johns Hopkins maintains it never commercialized or earned money from the cell lines, though numerous corporations have secured patents for their applications.
Last year, the Lacks estate secured a confidential settlement with biotechnology firm Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Family attorneys argued that company continued profiting from the cells long after the HeLa cell line’s origins became widely recognized, unfairly benefiting from Lacks’ biological material.
Additional legal cases filed by the estate remain ongoing. Shortly after resolving the Thermo Fisher Scientific matter, estate lawyers initiated litigation against Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical in Baltimore federal court. Legal proceedings against both Ultragenyx and pharmaceutical company Viatris continue.
Family attorneys have suggested more lawsuits may be forthcoming.
Lacks grew up as an impoverished tobacco farmer in southern Virginia before marrying and relocating with her spouse to Turner Station, a predominantly Black neighborhood near Baltimore. The couple was raising five children when physicians found a cervical tumor and preserved a portion of her cancer cells obtained during a medical procedure.
Unlike typical cell samples that quickly deteriorated after removal from the human body, her cells continued living and multiplying in laboratory settings. Scientists named them the first immortalized human cell line because researchers could grow them continuously, allowing scientists worldwide to conduct identical experiments using the same cellular material.
The extraordinary scientific implications and the effects on the Lacks family, several of whom suffered from ongoing health conditions without medical coverage, were chronicled in Rebecca Skloot’s bestselling 2010 book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” The story was later adapted into an HBO film featuring Oprah Winfrey as her daughter.
