A long overdue reckoning for Henrietta Lacks — the Black woman whose cancer cells led to breakthroughs in the field but were harvested without her consent — has been slow but steady in recent years.
It took decades for her relatives to learn that her tissue had been used for research and for them to receive any sort of compensation. But a recent settlement with her estate is the latest win for the legacy of a mother who died of cervical cancer at age 31 and was buried in an unmarked grave.
Novartis has settled a lawsuit by Lacks’ estate that alleged the pharmaceutical giant profited off her cells, which were taken from her tumor without her knowledge. The cells were reproduced in labs and led to major medical advancements and cancer research, as well as COVID-19 and polio vaccines.
In 1951, Lacks was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. At the hospital, Dr. George Gey harvested her tissue without her permission, which was legal at the time. He performed the first successful cloning of human cells and went on to use the cells, which he called HeLa cells, in medical research.
Before HeLa cells, scientists wanted a way to grow and study human cells in the lab to conduct studies that are impossible to do in a living person.
Details of the Novartis agreement, which was finalized in federal court in Maryland in February, aren’t public, the Associated Press reported.
The Lacks family and Novartis said in a joint statement they are “pleased they were able to find a way to resolve this matter filed by Henrietta Lacks’ Estate outside of court” but aren’t commenting further.
It’s the second settlement in lawsuits filed by the estate that accused biomedical businesses of reaping rewards from a racist medical system that took advantage of Black patients like Lacks. The settlement ends litigation between Novartis, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, and the estate of Lacks.
In 2023, Lacks’ estate reached an undisclosed settlement with the biotechnology company Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., according to the AP. Lawyers for the family argued in that case that the company commercialized the results long after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known and unjustly enriched itself off Lacks’ cells.
John Hopkins has denied any wrongdoing, but noted that HeLa cells are among the most important scientific discoveries of the last century. Johns Hopkins said they have never sold or profited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and don’t own the rights to the HeLa cell line.
Some national legislation passed in recent years adds a layer of accountability for researchers and medical professionals. The Henrietta Lacks Enhancing Cancer Research Act signed into law in 2021 aims to reduce barriers for people in racial minority groups to take part in clinical trials. To do so, it requires that the federal government report the amount of participation by underrepresented groups in government-funded cancer research trials.