Ultragenyx must face Henrietta Lacks family lawsuit over HeLa cell profits
Corrects Ultragenyx attorneys' law firm information
By Blake Brittain
May 20 (Reuters) -The estate of Henrietta Lacks can move forward with a lawsuit against biopharmaceutical company Ultragenyx RARE.O over the use of cells taken from Lacks' body in the 1950s, a Maryland federal court said on Monday.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman rejected Ultragenyx's motion to dismiss the case, ruling that the estate had plausibly claimed that Ultragenyx wrongly profited from its research using the "immortal" HeLa cell line.
An attorney for Ultragenyx declined to comment.
The HeLa cells were cut from Lacks' cervix without her knowledge during a cancer-treatment procedure at a Baltimore hospital in 1951. The cell line was the first to survive and reproduce indefinitely in lab conditions and has been used in a wide range of medical research worldwide.
"We applaud Judge Boardman’s historic ruling, which allows our unjust enrichment claims to proceed and acknowledges the deep injustices that Henrietta Lacks and her family have endured," the estate's attorneys Christopher Seeger and Christopher Ayers of Seeger Weiss said in a statement.
The estate previously sued Thermo Fisher Scientific for its alleged misuse of the HeLa line in a case that settled last year.
The Lacks estate sued Novato, California-based Ultragenyx, which develops treatments for rare genetic diseases, days after the Thermo Fisher settlement. The estate accused the company of using HeLa cells "like a dairy farm treats cows" to mass-produce materials for gene therapy.
"HeLa cells' impact on medical research is unassailable," Ultragenyx told the court in its motion to dismiss the case. "But Plaintiff has sued the wrong defendant, using an invalid legal theory, in pursuit of 'huge profits' that do not exist."
Boardman said in denying Ultragenyx's motion that the estate's case was strong enough to continue.
"Ultragenyx asks this Court to find that its acquisition and use of HeLa cells is too remote from the seizure of cells from Henrietta Lacks for Lacks to state a claim for unjust enrichment," Boardman said. "That is not the law."
The case is Lacks v. Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, No. 1:23-cv-02171.
For Lacks: Ben Crump of Ben Crump Law; Christopher Seeger, Christopher Ayers and Jeffrey Grand of Seeger Weiss; and Kim Parker of the Law Offices of Kim Parker
For Ultragenyx: Andrew George of Bourelly George & Brodey; Nadira Clarke of Hogan Lovells; and Tonya Cronin of Baker Donelson
Read more:
Henrietta Lacks' family sues Ultragenyx over use of HeLa cell line
Thermo Fisher settles Henrietta Lacks lawsuit over 'HeLa' cell line
Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington
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