Novartis has resolved a lawsuit brought by the estate of Henrietta Lacks, reaching a confidential settlement finalized in federal court in Maryland in late February 2026. The pharmaceutical giant and the Lacks family issued a joint statement saying they were “pleased they were able to find a way to resolve this matter filed by Henrietta Lacks’ Estate outside of court,” though neither side disclosed the financial terms of the agreement. The case, filed in August 2024, accused Novartis of profiting from HeLa cells — taken from Lacks without her knowledge or consent in 1951 — in the development of major products including the herpes treatment Famvir, the CAR-T therapy Kymriah, and the gene therapy Zolgensma.
This marks the second settlement won by the Lacks estate in its ongoing campaign to hold biomedical companies accountable for profiting from what the family’s legal team calls “stolen cells.” The first came in 2023 against Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., also for undisclosed terms. Represented by prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump, the estate continues to pursue active lawsuits against Viatris and rare disease specialist Ultragenyx. This article examines the details of the Novartis settlement, the broader history behind the HeLa cell line, remaining legal battles, and what this growing wave of accountability means for the pharmaceutical industry.
Table of Contents
- What Was the Novartis Lawsuit With the Family of Henrietta Lacks About?
- Why Were Henrietta Lacks’ Cells So Valuable to the Medical Industry?
- How Does the Novartis Settlement Compare to the Thermo Fisher Case?
- What Lawsuits Remain Active Against Other Companies?
- What Does This Mean for Bioethics and Informed Consent?
- The Role of Ben Crump and Civil Rights Framing
- What Comes Next for the Lacks Family and the Pharmaceutical Industry?
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Was the Novartis Lawsuit With the Family of Henrietta Lacks About?
The estate of Henrietta Lacks filed its lawsuit against Novartis and Viatris in federal court in Baltimore in August 2024. The complaint sought the “full amount of net profits obtained by commercializing the HeLa cell line,” alleging that both companies built commercially successful products on the back of cells taken from a Black woman who never consented to their use and whose family was never compensated. The complaint specifically named three Novartis products — Famvir, Kymriah, and Zolgensma — as having been developed using HeLa cells during research and testing phases. Kymriah alone, a groundbreaking CAR-T cancer therapy, was priced at $475,000 per treatment when it first came to market.
The legal argument rested on the premise that Novartis knowingly used biological material obtained through what the lawsuit characterized as exploitation rooted in a racist medical system. Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cancer cells in 1951 without telling her or asking permission — a practice that, while not uncommon at the time, has become a defining example of medical ethics violations against Black patients. Lacks died later that same year, never knowing her cells had been harvested. Her family did not learn about the HeLa cell line’s existence until more than two decades later, by which point her cells had already fueled a multi-billion-dollar biomedical industry.
Why Were Henrietta Lacks’ Cells So Valuable to the Medical Industry?
Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cells were extraordinary for one reason: they were the first human cells to continuously grow and reproduce in laboratory dishes. Before HeLa, researchers struggled to keep human cells alive long enough outside the body to conduct meaningful experiments. Her cells not only survived but thrived, dividing aggressively and consistently in ways that made them ideal for large-scale scientific research. Scientists could ship them across the world, expose them to viruses and chemicals, and study cellular behavior with a reliability that had never existed before. The impact was staggering. HeLa cells were instrumental in developing the polio vaccine, one of the great public health achievements of the twentieth century.
They contributed to advances in genetic mapping, in vitro fertilization research, and the development of drugs for HIV, cancer, and other diseases. Most recently, HeLa cells played a role in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, meaning that Lacks’ biological legacy directly touched the lives of billions of people during a global pandemic. However, the very quality that made these cells invaluable — their near-indestructible ability to replicate — also made them impossible to contain or control, and they proliferated through labs worldwide without any mechanism for compensating the woman from whom they originated. It is worth noting that while the scientific contributions of HeLa cells are beyond dispute, the commercial profits generated from products developed using those cells are far harder to quantify. Companies like Novartis did not sell HeLa cells directly; they used them as research tools in developing proprietary therapies. This distinction has been central to corporate defense strategies, though the Lacks estate’s legal team has argued that profiting from stolen biological material is wrong regardless of how many steps separate the theft from the final product.
How Does the Novartis Settlement Compare to the Thermo Fisher Case?
The Novartis resolution represents the second legal victory for the Lacks estate, following its 2023 settlement with Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Thermo Fisher was a somewhat different defendant — the company had been directly selling HeLa cells as a commercial product through its laboratory supply catalogs, making the connection between profit and Lacks’ cells more straightforward. That case, also represented by Ben Crump, resulted in an undisclosed settlement and was widely viewed as a landmark moment in bioethics law. The Novartis case pushed the legal theory further.
Rather than targeting a company that sold the cells themselves, the estate went after a pharmaceutical manufacturer that used HeLa cells as part of its research and development pipeline. This is a more complex legal argument because it requires establishing a clear line between the use of specific cell lines in research and the commercial success of finished pharmaceutical products. The fact that Novartis chose to settle rather than test these arguments at trial suggests the company saw meaningful legal risk, though it could also reflect a desire to avoid the reputational damage of a prolonged public courtroom battle over the exploitation of a Black woman’s body. For its part, the Lacks estate has demonstrated a willingness to pursue both direct profiteers and downstream beneficiaries, signaling that no company that touched HeLa cells should consider itself safe from scrutiny.
What Lawsuits Remain Active Against Other Companies?
While the Novartis chapter is closed, the Lacks estate’s legal campaign is far from over. The lawsuit against Viatris, which was a co-defendant alongside Novartis in the August 2024 filing, remains active. Viatris, a global pharmaceutical company formed through the merger of Mylan and Upjohn, faces the same core allegations — that it commercialized products developed using HeLa cells without compensating the Lacks family. The fact that Novartis settled while Viatris did not suggests the two companies may be pursuing different legal strategies, or that settlement negotiations with Viatris simply have not reached a resolution. Separately, the Lacks estate filed a lawsuit against Ultragenyx, a rare disease specialist, in 2023. That case also remains active.
Ultragenyx focuses on gene therapies and enzyme replacement treatments, a field where cell line research is foundational. Each of these lawsuits carries the same fundamental accusation: that biomedical companies built profitable enterprises on a foundation of exploitation, profiting from a racist medical system that treated Black patients’ bodies as raw material rather than recognizing their humanity and autonomy. The tradeoff for the Lacks estate in pursuing multiple lawsuits is significant. Each case requires substantial legal resources and carries the risk of an unfavorable ruling that could undermine future claims. However, the two settlements already secured — even with undisclosed terms — create strong momentum. Companies facing similar accusations must weigh the cost of litigation against the certainty and confidentiality of a settlement, and the Lacks family’s legal team under Ben Crump has demonstrated the ability to bring these cases to successful resolution.
What Does This Mean for Bioethics and Informed Consent?
The Lacks cases have forced a broader reckoning within the biomedical industry about the ethics of using human biological material without consent. When Henrietta Lacks’ cells were taken in 1951, there was no legal requirement for informed consent in the way we understand it today. Patients — particularly Black patients in segregated hospitals — were routinely subjected to procedures and sample collection without being told what was happening or why. The fact that this was legal at the time does not make it ethical, and the Lacks lawsuits have been explicit in framing these practices as part of systemic racism in American medicine. However, it is important to recognize the limitations of what these lawsuits can accomplish. Even if the Lacks estate wins every pending case and secures substantial financial compensation, no amount of money can retroactively provide consent or undo the exploitation that occurred.
The settlements are symbolic as much as they are financial — they represent a formal acknowledgment by major corporations that something wrong happened and that the consequences of that wrong continue to generate profit today. For the pharmaceutical industry more broadly, these cases serve as a warning that historical exploitation may carry modern legal consequences, even decades after the fact. There is also a concern that aggressive litigation around cell lines could have a chilling effect on biomedical research. Some researchers worry that if companies face liability for using widely available cell lines, it could slow the pace of drug development. This argument has gained little traction publicly, in part because the Lacks cases are so deeply tied to racial injustice that defending the status quo carries enormous reputational risk. Still, the legal precedents being set here will likely shape how the industry approaches biological material, consent, and compensation for years to come.
The Role of Ben Crump and Civil Rights Framing
The involvement of Ben Crump as lead attorney for the Lacks estate is significant. Crump is one of the most prominent civil rights attorneys in the country, known for representing the families of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, among others. His presence on the case signals that the Lacks family views their fight not merely as a commercial dispute but as a civil rights matter — an extension of the same systemic racism that denied Black Americans equal protection under the law for centuries.
This framing has been strategically effective. By casting the pharmaceutical industry’s use of HeLa cells as part of a broader pattern of racial exploitation, the Lacks legal team has made it politically and reputationally costly for companies to fight these cases aggressively in public. Novartis, like Thermo Fisher before it, chose to settle quietly rather than defend its use of cells taken from a Black woman without consent in open court. The joint statement’s carefully neutral language — expressing mutual satisfaction at resolving the matter outside of court — reflects a desire on both sides to close the chapter without further public scrutiny of the underlying facts.
What Comes Next for the Lacks Family and the Pharmaceutical Industry?
The Novartis settlement adds to what is becoming an unmistakable pattern: companies that profited from HeLa cells are choosing to settle rather than fight. With the Viatris and Ultragenyx lawsuits still active, the Lacks estate has a clear roadmap for continuing its campaign. If those cases also result in settlements, it will further establish the principle that historical exploitation of biological material carries financial consequences, regardless of how long ago the initial wrong occurred.
For the pharmaceutical industry, the broader question is whether these cases will remain limited to HeLa cells or whether they open the door to similar claims involving other cell lines and biological materials obtained under ethically questionable circumstances. The Lacks cases are uniquely powerful because of their racial dimension, the sheer scientific importance of HeLa cells, and the cultural awareness generated by Rebecca Skloot’s bestselling book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” But the legal theories underlying these suits — unjust enrichment, lack of consent, profiting from stolen biological material — could theoretically apply to other situations as well. Companies would be wise to audit their own research histories now rather than waiting for a lawsuit to force the conversation.
Conclusion
The confidential settlement between Novartis and the Henrietta Lacks estate represents another significant step toward accountability for one of the most consequential ethical violations in modern medical history. While the financial terms remain undisclosed, the symbolic weight of a second major pharmaceutical company choosing to resolve these claims is difficult to overstate.
It affirms that the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks — a Black woman whose cells were taken without consent and used to generate incalculable scientific and commercial value — is not a historical footnote that companies can safely ignore. With lawsuits against Viatris and Ultragenyx still pending, and Ben Crump continuing to press the civil rights dimensions of the case, the pharmaceutical industry should expect this issue to remain in the spotlight. For consumers and advocates tracking corporate accountability, these settlements demonstrate that persistent legal action can force even the largest companies to reckon with the human costs embedded in their supply chains — even when those costs were incurred more than seven decades ago.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the Novartis settlement amount with the Henrietta Lacks estate?
The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Both Novartis and the Lacks estate issued a joint statement indicating satisfaction with the resolution but declined to comment further on the specifics.
Who is representing the Henrietta Lacks family in these lawsuits?
The Lacks family is represented by Ben Crump, one of the most prominent civil rights attorneys in the United States, known for his work on high-profile racial justice cases.
How many companies has the Henrietta Lacks estate sued?
The estate has pursued lawsuits against at least four companies: Thermo Fisher Scientific (settled in 2023), Novartis (settled in February 2026), Viatris (lawsuit still active), and Ultragenyx (lawsuit filed in 2023, still active).
What are HeLa cells and why are they important?
HeLa cells are cervical cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. They were the first human cells to continuously grow and reproduce in lab conditions, enabling breakthroughs including the polio vaccine, genetic mapping, and COVID-19 vaccines.
Did Henrietta Lacks consent to having her cells used for research?
No. Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took her cervical cells in 1951 without her knowledge or consent. Lacks died later that year, and her family did not learn about the existence of the HeLa cell line until decades later.
What products did Novartis allegedly develop using HeLa cells?
The lawsuit alleged Novartis used HeLa cells in developing the herpes treatment Famvir, the CAR-T cancer therapy Kymriah, and the gene therapy Zolgensma.