Novartis settles with Henrietta Lacks’ estate over use of her ’stolen’ cells to advance medicine

Novartis settles with Henrietta Lacks' estate over the unauthorized use of her cells that advanced medical research.

Novartis has settled a lawsuit by the estate of Henrietta Lacks that alleged the pharmaceutical giant unjustly profited off her cells, which were taken from her tumor without her knowledge in 1951 and reproduced in labs to enable major medical advancements, including the polio vaccine.

Details of the agreement, which was finalised in federal court in Maryland this month, aren't public.

The Lacks family and Swiss-based Novartis said in a joint statement that 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, a mother who died of cervical cancer at age 31 and was buried in an unmarked grave.

The 2024 lawsuit had sought from Novartis “the full amount of its net profits obtained by commercializing the HeLa cell line," which the complaint said had been cultivated from “stolen cells.”

Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took Lacks’ cervical cells in 1951 without her knowledge, and the tissue taken from her tumor before she died became the first human cells to continuously grow and reproduce in lab dishes. HeLa cells became a cornerstone of modern medicine, enabling countless scientific and medical innovations, including the development of genetic mapping and even COVID-19 vaccines, but the Lacks family wasn't compensated along the way despite that incalculable impact on science and medicine.