Henrietta Lacks’ Family Settles With Biotech Company That Used Her Cells Without Consent For 70+ Years.

Over 70 years after Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cells were taken without her knowledge, her family finally settled with Thermo Fisher Scientific, a biotech company they say profited from.

Henrietta Lacks

Lacks was a Black mother of five who died of cervical cancer in October 1951 at 31.

She had learned she had cervical cancer eight months before her death when she was admitted to a racially segregated ward at John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. 

Following a tumor biopsy, doctors saved a sample of Lacks’ cancer cells without telling her and passed them on to a medical researcher at Johns Hopkins University.

Most cell cultures died quickly in the lab, however, Lacks’ cells continued to multiply and didn’t age. These “immortal” cells were named HeLa (after her first and last name) and sent to labs worldwide.

Since then, it is thought that 50 million tonnes of Henrietta Lacks’ cells have been reproduced. Her cells have allowed researchers to develop vaccines for polio and COVID-19 and treatments for HIV, Parkinson’s, influenza, and cancer.

Researchers around the world have also used the cells and have been cited in more than 110,000 scientific publications, according to the National Institute of Health.

The HeLa cell line

While Johns Hopkins said it never sold or profited from the cell lines, many companies have.

In 2021, Lacks’ family filed a lawsuit claiming that biotechnology company Thermo Fisher Scientific profited from the HeLa cell line. 

They accused the company of making “staggering profits” from the cells and trying to secure intellectual property rights on the products the cells had helped develop – all while Ms. Lacks’ estate and family “haven’t seen a dime.”

Her family was unaware that her cells were being used in research until two decades after her death.

The Massachusetts-based company settled with some of Lacks’ descendants last week.

According to The New York Times, a grandson of Lacks, Alfred Lacks Carter Jr., said, “It was a long fight, over 70 years, and Henrietta Lacks gets her day.”

The settlement terms are confidential, as both statements read, “The parties are pleased that they were able to find a way to resolve this matter outside of Court and will have no further comment.