The family of Henrietta Lacks, a woman whose cells were taken without her consent in 1951 and led to various medical advancements, has reached a settlement with pharmaceutical company Novartis for using her cells. Lacks’ cells have led to the development of polio and Covid-19 vaccines, as well as treatments for cancer, Parkinson’s disease and the flu, according to The New York Times.

Who was Henrietta Lacks?

Henrietta Pleasant was born in 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia and worked on a tobacco farm. In 1941, she married David “Day” Lacks and they had five children, The Boston Globe reported. Lacks visited Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in 1951 for pain in her cervix; she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. As a result, she underwent radium treatment under anesthesia. During that time, samples from her tumor and cervical tissue were taken without her consent.

Dr. George Gey took the samples to his lab, incubated them, and labeled them “HeLa” in reference to Lacks’ first and last names. Gey discovered that Lacks’ cancerous cells were not only surviving, but they were also replicating — a medical breakthrough. HeLa cells became known in medical research, although Lacks’ name wasn’t mentioned.

Lacks died of cervical cancer at 31 years old and was buried in an unmarked grave, according to the Associated Press. 

“HeLa cells have been really critical for many scientific discoveries, but especially for HIV in terms of understanding how infection actually works, and how people get infected with HIV‚” Dr. Sabrina Assoumou, an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center, told The Boston Globe.

HeLa cells were cited over 110,000 times in scientific publications between 1953 and 2018, according to the National Institutes of Health and as reported by The New York Times. They helped develop the polio and Covid-19 vaccines, as well as treatments for cancer, Parkinson’s and the flu.

The family of Henrietta Lacks settles with Novartis

Lacks’ family was never compensated for the use of her cells. Johns Hopkins Hospital said it never profited from the HeLa cells but several companies have patented ways of using them, according to the Associated Press. 

The Lacks family filed a lawsuit against Swiss-based pharmaceutical company Novartis in August 2024, alleging it profited from the use of HeLa cells.

“Novartis was aware that these cells were taken without consent,” the lawsuit read, per The New York Times. “Despite this, Novartis never sought or received permission from the estate of Henrietta Lacks to use her cells, treating them as mere tools or resources.”

Originally, the lawsuit against Novartis sought “the full amount of its net profits obtained by commercializing the HeLa cell line,” according to the Associated Press.

Details of the settlement weren’t made publicly available, but it was finalized in federal court in Maryland in February 2026. 

“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’s estate outside of court,” a statement read, according to The New York Times. “The terms of the agreement are confidential.”

Ben Crump, a lawyer representing the Lacks family, said his clients are satisfied with the settlement.

“For the family and her grandchildren, this is certainly justice because people said they would never realize any benefit or compensation from her immortal HeLa cells, even though these pharmaceutical companies were profiting billions and billions of dollars,” he said, according to The New York Times.

The Lacks family is currently in litigation against two other pharmaceutical companies

In August 2023, the Lacks family reached another settlement with Thermo Fisher Scientific after alleging they had profited off the cells and sought to retain intellectual property rights on the products the cells helped develop without the family’s consent. The settlement was also undisclosed when it was reached at the time.

The Lacks family is still in litigation against two other pharmaceutical companies, Viatris and Ultragenyx. Attorneys for the family said there could be other complaints filed.

“To the modern researcher, the fact that cells were taken and established into an immortalized, forever-growing cell line from a patient that didn’t know that happened is astounding,” Cigall Kadoch, an associate professor of pediatric oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, told The Boston Globe.

The case has led to legislation being passed in order to prevent future occurrences. As Capital B News reported, the Henrietta Lacks Enhancing Cancer Research Act of 2021 “aims to reduce barriers for people in racial minority groups to take part in clinical trials” by requiring ” the federal government report the amount of participation by underrepresented groups in government-funded cancer research trials.”