2026年2月27日 / 美国东部时间上午5:34 / 美联社
瑞士制药巨头诺华公司已就海莉耶塔·拉克斯（Henrietta Lacks）遗产提起的诉讼达成和解。该诉讼指控这家制药企业通过未经允许获取拉克斯的细胞获利，这些细胞于1951年从她的肿瘤中被提取，后在实验室中增殖，推动了包括脊髓灰质炎疫苗在内的重大医学进步。
本月在马里兰州联邦法院最终敲定的和解协议细节尚未公开。
拉克斯家族与总部位于瑞士的诺华公司在联合声明中表示，”很高兴能够在法庭外找到解决海莉耶塔·拉克斯遗产提起的诉讼的办法”，但未进一步置评。
这是拉克斯遗产提起的第二起诉讼和解。此前的诉讼指控生物医学企业从利用拉克斯等黑人患者的种族主义医疗体系中获利。
这场和解结束了诺华公司（全球最大制药企业之一）与拉克斯遗产之间的诉讼。拉克斯是一位31岁因宫颈癌去世的母亲，被安葬在一处无名墓地。
2024年提起的诉讼要求诺华公司赔偿”通过商业化海拉细胞系获得的全部净利润”，诉状称这些细胞系源自”被盗细胞”。
（图片说明：海莉耶塔·拉克斯的画像悬挂在马里兰州特纳站里昂家园海莉耶塔·拉克斯社区中心的入口处。Kim Hairston / 《巴尔的摩太阳报》/ 论坛新闻社 via Getty Images）
1951年，约翰斯·霍普金斯医院的医生在未告知拉克斯的情况下获取了她的宫颈细胞，这些取自她肿瘤的组织在她去世后成为首个能在实验室培养皿中持续生长繁殖的人类细胞。海拉细胞系成为现代医学的基石，推动了无数科学与医学创新，包括基因图谱绘制甚至新冠疫苗研发，但拉克斯家族在此过程中未获得任何补偿，尽管这些细胞对科学和医学产生了不可估量的影响。
约翰斯·霍普金斯大学表示从未出售或从细胞系中获利，但许多公司已就使用这些细胞的方法申请专利。
2023年，拉克斯遗产与生物科技公司赛默飞世尔科技（Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.）达成了一项未披露金额的和解协议。当时该家族的律师辩称，在海拉细胞系起源广为人知后，赛默飞仍继续商业化其成果，不当利用拉克斯的细胞获利。
拉克斯遗产还有其他待决诉讼。在与赛默飞达成和解一周多后，该遗产的律师向巴尔的摩联邦法院提起针对Ultragenyx制药公司的诉讼，与此前和解案件的管辖法院相同。与Ultragenyx以及制药公司Viatris的诉讼仍在进行中。
该家族的律师表示可能会提起更多诉讼。
拉克斯曾是弗吉尼亚州南部一名贫穷的烟草农民，与丈夫搬到巴尔的摩外历史上的黑人社区特纳站。他们养育五个孩子时，医生发现拉克斯子宫颈有肿瘤，并在活检中收集了她癌细胞的样本。
尽管大多数细胞样本在取出体外后很快死亡，但她的细胞在实验室中存活并大量增殖。它们成为首个永生化人类细胞系，因为科学家可以无限期培养它们，这意味着世界各地的研究人员都能使用相同细胞重复研究。
丽贝卡·斯克鲁特（Rebecca Skloot）2010年出版的畅销书《海莉耶塔·拉克斯的不朽人生》记录了这一非凡的科学发现以及对拉克斯家族的影响——部分家人患有慢性病且没有医疗保险。奥普拉·温弗瑞在HBO拍摄的同名纪录片中饰演她的女儿。
Novartis settles with woman’s estate over use of her “stolen” cells to advance medicine
February 27, 2026 / 5:34 AM EST / AP
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 advances, including the polio vaccine.
Details of the agreement, which was finalized 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.”
A painting of Henrietta Lacks hangs in the entryway of the Henrietta Lacks Community Center at Lyon Homes in Turner Station, Maryland. Kim Hairston / The Baltimore Sun / Tribune News Service via Getty Images
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.
Johns Hopkins said it never sold or profited from the cell lines, but many companies have patented ways of using them.
In 2023, Lacks’ estate reached an undisclosed settlement with the biotechnology company Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Lawyers for the family argued in that case that the company continued to commercialize the results long after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known and unjustly enriched itself off Lacks’ cells.
There are other pending lawsuits by the Lacks estate. Just over a week after the estate settled the case with Thermo Fisher Scientific, attorneys for the estate filed a lawsuit against Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical in Baltimore federal court, the same venue as the previously settled case. Litigation with Ultragenyx as well as Viatris, a pharmaceutical company, remain active.
Attorneys for the family have indicated there could be additional complaints filed.
Lacks was a poor tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who married and moved with her husband to Turner Station, a historically Black community outside Baltimore. They were raising five children when doctors discovered a tumor in Lacks’ cervix and saved a sample of her cancer cells collected during a biopsy.
While most cell samples died shortly after being removed from the body, her cells survived and thrived in laboratories. They became known as the first immortalized human cell line because scientists could cultivate them indefinitely, meaning researchers anywhere could reproduce studies using identical cells.
The remarkable science involved – and the impact on the Lacks family, some of whom had chronic illnesses and no health insurance – were documented in a bestselling book by Rebecca Skloot, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” which was published in 2010. Oprah Winfrey portrayed her daughter in an HBO movie about the story.
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