Family of Baltimore’s Henrietta Lacks settles unjust enrichment lawsuit

Listen to this article

The family of Henrietta Lacks, a Black Baltimorean whose cells were taken without her consent and contributed to major scientific breakthroughs, has reached another settlement with a pharmaceutical giant.

Lacks’ estate settled last month with Novartis Pharmaceuticals, allowing the company to exit a lawsuit filed in August 2024 in Maryland federal court alleging unjust enrichment.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

The settlement with Novartis is the second that her estate — represented by Ron L. Sacks, one of her grandsons — has reached with a Big Pharma company. In August 2023, the estate settled with Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer and was admitted to a segregated ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951.

While she was there, doctors took tissue samples without her consent and used them for research. The cells from that sample reproduced, and since then, the “HeLa cell line” has proved critical in medical discoveries including the polio vaccine, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization.

She died later the same year, and her family didn’t learn about the tissue samples or the impact of the HeLa cell line for decades.

“Medical research has a long, troubled racial history,” the complaint stated. “The exploitation of Henrietta Lacks represents the unfortunately common struggle experienced by Black people throughout American history. Indeed, Black suffering has fueled innumerable medical progress and profit, without just compensation or recognition.”

The 2024 lawsuit was also against Viatris and one of its subsidiaries. They were not part of the settlement; they are required to respond to the complaint by late March.

The Lacks estate was represented by Baltimore lawyer Kim Parker, two New Jersey-based firms and the prominent civil rights lawyer Ben Crump.

“Members of the family of Henrietta Lacks and Novartis are pleased they were able to find a way to resolve this matter filed by Henrietta Lacks’ Estate outside of court,” Novartis and the Crump firm said in a joint statement.

The estate has another pending unjust-enrichment case, against Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical. Litigation in that case resumed in mid-February after the parties were not able to reach a settlement.

This story has been updated with a joint statement from Novartis and the Crump firm.